


The Ballad of Bells and Hounds

by sophluorescent



Series: Eclipsicals Verse [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Animal Sacrifice, Blood, Demon Summoning, Demons, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Minor Character Death, Rituals, Witch Hunters, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-12-20 18:13:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21061013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophluorescent/pseuds/sophluorescent
Summary: The eleventh hour is the hour of preparation. The hour in which Jongdae will summon the daemon that bathed the world red.





	1. Cambion

**Author's Note:**

> Before you get to reading, I’d like to thank the Monster Mods as well as my beta, P, for doing so much for me. If it weren’t for the mods working with me when I changed my prompt (multiple times because I’m a mess) and for P proofreading and offering advice on this work, I’m unsure it would have ever been completed!
> 
> I had a lovely time participating in this fest and hope that you guys enjoy what I have to offer!
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/sophluorescent)

The eleventh hour is the hour of preparation. It is the hour in which he sets everything out. Each piece is meticulously placed in its specific spot. The witches of old used to be able to memorize their summoning circles—it was easier to memorize it than to put it on paper and risk being accused—but Jongdae has never been able to pick up the talent.

The chants come to him easily, their rhythmic-cant, the musical intonation… it is with great ease that he picks up new prayers and evocations. But, for the circles… for the circles he  _ must  _ open his mother’s grimoire, lest he misplace a divot or character. He knows what can go wrong when a circle is improperly drawn and so he approaches his weakness steadfastly and without arrogance. He has nothing to prove. The book is there for a reason. 

Jongdae is summoning something new this evening. Something beyond the pits of hell. Not intrinsically evil, but certainly not  _ good _ . Merely, grey. Ambiguous. The world beyond the veil is a curious thing, and though Mother Sefdalina had cast away the very first drapery of it, much of the world beyond is still separated from theirs. 

His focus returns back to the piece of chalk in hand. He thumbs it wordlessly, then continues to draw, letting his gaze rove over the pretty illustration on the grimoire opposite him. At the bottom of the page, his mother’s notes tell him short little anecdotes about the daemon she had summoned. It holds her observations and her questions.

He finishes the circle and reaches out to grab the grimoire, pulling it into his lap. His eyes drop to the notes. He’d like to make sure he knows what he is getting into before he fully commits to the summoning.

“Hyeon… the Fourth Eclipse,” he reads aloud, sounding out the name on his tongue, familiarizing himself with the content. “Offers gifts of loyalty and guidance to his summoners. He does not ask an exchange of his summoner, and so is safe within a circle. His energy is quietly creative, and he positively enhances the magic of those surrounding him-“ 

_ That’s good in theory _ , Jongdae thinks. Except that magic is something secretive once more. 

“He’s a playful summon and acts exuberantly when in a group—vies for the attention of his summoner. More calculated than mischievous, more demonic than angelic. He is a series of contradictions with a stunning duality to him, but the summoner should be wary as always when summoning an  _ eclipsical _ .” He hums in agreement with the text, only just scanning the questions his mother had jotted down at the bottom of the page. He can almost feel her excitement radiating from the text.

He smiles fondly before closing the book and setting it aside. When he glances at the clock, he’s pleased to watch the hand turn. The Witching Hour has begun. He grins. His chant comes softly at first, syllables falling from his mouth in a gentle cadence, as though he were crooning a lullaby.

As he sings, he places a clear quartz chalice filled with lamb’s blood in the center of the summoning circle. He places two clusters of grapes, a singular pomegranate, and a ring—his mother’s ring—next to it. He is welcoming the eclipsical into his home with food, drink, and clothing. He is showing it respect.

His song grows in volume, though he has added no additional power to his voice. It has become unearthly, seeping into the very wood of his floors, unraveling the knit of his rugs. The eleven candles he has set out (four tall ones representing the daemon itself and seven short ones for harmony) flicker into flame. His song crescendos.

And silence falls. In the center of the circle, the air shimmers, compresses as if it is holding its breath, then breathes out and unfolds. The image is more reminiscent of a shadow than of a person at first—its shape is amorphous and there is no difference in its hues. Jongdae sits entranced as the daemon comes into being. 

It is shrouded with a thin grey veil, almost reminiscent of a religious saint, but as its flesh solidifies, it reaches up, picking the cloth from its face and pulling it away, casting it to the side. And so, Hyeon has crossed the veil. The daemon blinks at him, eyes burning as bright as fire for one moment before they dim and settle into a darkness as black as coal. 

“Hello,” Jongdae starts, sitting back on his heels and placing his hands on his knees, “Welcome to my world.”

The daemon cocks his head, looks around slowly, their gaze traveling around their surroundings calmly, unrushed. “Your world is small,” it comments. Jongdae snorts. It grins, strikingly human, then explores the offerings Jongdae has left it to choose from. It picks up the goblet, inspecting the quartz and the red glow its contents cast on the floor. 

It drinks, tipping the chalice back with practiced ease, setting it down after several long sips. Its lips are stained a deep red. A trail drips down the corner of his mouth, down his chin, and begins to drop down his neck. Jongdae resists the urge to reach forward with his sleeve to wipe away the trail. He doesn’t want to put any part of himself within the circle while the summoning is still volatile. 

In his distraction, he missed the daemon picking up the pomegranate, but he watches now as it sinks its nails into the fruit and rips it in half. It offers one half to Jongdae. He takes it without thinking, then cringes at his mistake. The daemon crooks an eyebrow, but does nothing to yank Jongdae into the circle. It does not attempt to draw its summoner’s blood. 

It bites into the fruit, watching Jongdae curiously. They’ve spoken only a few, empty words, and yet Jongdae is enraptured. It seems too, that the daemon is the same. Curiosity sparkles in its gaze, wholly different from any human emotion, and yet, so similar. 

“My mother wrote that your name is Hyeon, and that you are male. Is this how you wish to be known?” He asks.

“Hm, if you would like,” the daemon says. “The others call me  _ Baek _ hyun, though, if that is more natural for you?” Jongdae weighs the option, then nods.

“I’m glad to have summoned you then, Baekhyun. My mother had bookmarked your page in her grimoire as a summoning she would remember. You made a good impression on her.”

“She was pregnant when she summoned me,” he says, recalling the summoning’s familiar setting. “I’m glad to see you’ve followed in her footsteps. Hers is a long bloodline of old magic, it would have been a shame to lose it.” He nods at the pomegranate Jongdae still clutches in his hand. 

Blinking, Jongdae takes a bite, not wanting to seem rude. “You must be the only person that remembers her. The other daemons I’ve summoned haven’t ever said anything.” Baekhyun hums in understanding and turns his attention to the ring.

He slips it on his finger and lets it glitter in the candlelight for a bare minute before reaching over to pluck a grape from its stem. “They see more summonings than I do,” he explains simply, “which begs the question: why have you summoned me?”

“If you are familiar with my world, you’ll know that the first veil was removed a couple of decades ago. We’ve lived in eternal night since. Hell-spawn feast on those that don’t practice the proper protections,” he takes a breath. “Before my mother was killed she told me that you would protect me—if I summoned you, that is.”

Baekhyun chews slowly, then looks around again, his gaze settling on a framed portrait of Jongdae, his older brother, and his mother. He stares at it for a few minutes, then returns his gaze to Jongdae’s. “Why should I protect you?”

“Because I want to reset the balance of our worlds. I want to weave the veil over hell once more. Innocent lives shouldn’t be lost to the spirits of beyond,” Jongdae says. Baekhyun blinks, then laughs. Jongdae’s shoulders slump, his face falling. 

Baekhyun has a rich laugh even if, in context, it is cruel. When he regains his composure, his eyes are sparkling, “If you think I can’t suss a lie by now, little summoner, you have a lot to learn yet. But, I won’t pry.” He taps his lip thoughtfully, then leans forward until his face is but a hair’s breadth from Jongdae’s. “What does your world offer me?”

“Energy, mostly. Experience,” Jongdae says, shrugging. “If you are protecting me, you’ll have many interactions with the hell-spawn as well as with the hunters.”

“Hunters?” Baekhyun asks curiously.

“Since Sefdalina cast away the veil, mortals with the ability to see your kind—without witch’s blood—have banded together to enforce law on beings like me and you,” Jongdae responds seriously. Baekhyun lets him have his moment for a whole three seconds before he laughs again. 

Without invitation, he stands and simply  _ steps _ outside of Jongdae’s summoning circle. Jongdae gasps, his hands flying for the rune-inscribed stones he left within arm’s reach, clutching them in his palms and shouting a protection spell before he realizes that Baekhyun has made no move to attack him, or to ransack his home. 

The eclipsical looks over his shoulder at Jongdae’s shout, smirking, then resumes his exploration of Jongdae’s bookshelves. Jongdae does not release the stones from his grip, though he certainly breathes more easily now that he can see the faint blue shimmer of a ward over his skin. It takes an incredibly powerful being to simply step out of a summoning circle. The fact that he was able to do so without any physical kickback from the action—the candles flickering out or the floorboards creaking with the release of magical energy—is even more testament to the daemon’s control. 

“How’d you do that?”

“Your world is in eternal night and my power is born within the dark empty places. Are you truly shocked?” Baekhyun comments, pulling a book off the shelf and thumbing through it idly. He turns it to face Jongdae. The seven eclipsicals are illustrated on the page. “All of us are fragments of nature. I’m that of contradictions. Things that are, but aren’t.” He snaps the book closed and places it back on the shelf. “Hyeon, the dark. It doesn’t exist in the capacity that other things do. It’s an absence of light,” he explains. Jongdae’s never thought about it that way, but he supposes it is correct. 

“But the dark is the natural state of everything, how can you say it doesn’t exist?”

“ _ Is _ it the natural state?” Baekhyun asks. Jongdae scowls and drops the topic. “But, I don’t think I ever gave you an answer. I  _ will  _ protect you, at least until the veil is repaired. But, you  _ must  _ make an oath with me to seal the veil once more. I don’t care about your personal interests with hell, but this must be done in the end.”

Jongdae nods, he can do that. Baekhyun is silent for a beat, then twin knives materialize in the air, one in front of Jongdae, the other in front of Baekhyun. Jongdae spills his blood without second thought, speaking his oath aloud in his native tongue. On the other side of the room, Baekhyun does the same in  _ his  _ native tongue, the multi-toned syllabic language of the natural world. 

The deal is sealed as the cut on Jongdae’s hand closes with a burn, leaving a long white scar through his flesh. The knives disintegrate.

He does not even have time to address the pact before he spots movement in the corner of his eye. His eyes flit to the curtained window near the door. Moonlight typically streams into the room uninterrupted, but now, there is a very clear silhouette of something just beyond the curtains, looking in. “Baekhyun,” his voice shakes. In all the years he’s been alive, he has never seen something so unnerving. His wards keep away daemons that he does not specifically invite over his wards. 

The daemon looks up, takes in Jongdae’s tense body language, and follows his gaze to the window. As they watch, another figure walks past, coaxing its partner out of view. “I take it that isn’t normal?” He questions. Jongdae shakes his head. The daemon places a hand to the wall. Jongdae feels more than sees the magic ripple out from his touch. His wards must have just tripled in strength. 

Baekhyun’s eyebrows knit. “They aren’t arcane,” he says softly. “Humans.”

“How many then?” They must be hunters. Jongdae keeps a low-profile and tends to avoid conflict. Either someone he buys spices and gems from mentioned his habits to the wrong person, or they figured out about his wards. He’s banking on the latter. Having a daemon free home in this type of world without submitting to hunter protection is practically a beacon. 

Baekhyun blinks. “Five.” 

The doorknob turns ever so slightly. The lock holds fast. Jongdae slides the deadbolt in place with a flick of his hand, despite standing on the opposite side of the room. The quartz he had pulled out for the summoning sparkles with energy, lending its strength to his magic. When he looks back at Baekhyun, the daemon’s clothing is changing from the thin veil he’d wrapped around himself into a severe suit of black, fashionable, but strict. 

Jongdae wants to quip about his obvious vanity, but it distracted by the sound of footsteps passing alongside his home. His attention is instantly elsewhere. Baekhyun, though, doesn’t even pay that noise mind, looking upstairs instead. “Can you handle an altercation?”

“Summoning you was draining despite all the conduits I used. I wouldn’t be able to handle any fight that lasted more than a few minutes,” he says, wringing his fingers. Baekhyun nods smoothly and waves his hand over the room. Instantaneously, everything seems to get darker. He beckons Jongdae close, and folds him into his chest. The daemon’s body is a hard line against his back, sinewy muscle and sharp angles. He holds his hand, open palm out, in front of them. 

Jongdae watches as the darkness folds around them, obscuring them from view. The candles had gone out when Baekhyun had first darkened the room, and his magic was obviously causing the moonshine that illuminated the front lounge to dim significantly. In other words, they were invisible. Someone would have to walk into them to realize their presence. Baekhyun’s arms secure themselves around Jongdae’s slighter frame, and the both of them wait.

_ Click _ . Then, the creaking sound of his backdoor opening. The outside breeze drifts through the home, rustling his curtains, gently turning the page of his grimoire. For a moment, it seems like a fluke, it is so silent. But soon, Jongdae hears the footsteps. His breath hitches ever so slightly. Baekhyun’s hand tightens warningly on his waist. 

A shadowed shape appears just beyond where he’d drawn the summoning circle. He can almost feel Baekhyun’s heart beat quicker, excitement simmering lowly under his skin as the hunter walks forward, dangerously close to Baekhyun’s center of power in this world. 

They step inside the circle the very second one of their companions appears in view and hisses out a warning. The hunter pauses, looks down, and Jongdae watches as horror stiffens their stature. Baekhyun’s nails dig into Jongdae’s waist. He’s showing great restraint, ignoring the trespasser in order to keep up their disguise. Or, Jongdae thought he was showing restraint.

He’s proven wrong when then chalked lines of the circle glow bright and dozens of grabbing hands pry themselves from the floorboards, reaching, pulling, tearing into the pant of the hunter’s leg. Jongdae blinks at they drag the human completely into the circle, as they begin to rip at skin instead of fabric. Baekhyun must sense his discomfort, though, because the hands drag him wholly into hell before gore can begin to spatter Jongdae’s floor. 

The circle hums with power, and dims, returning to its natural state. 

“Watch the ground.” The hunter who speaks has a tremor in his voice, but when he strides carefully into the lounge and Jongdae can see him properly, he’s interested to see that it doesn’t reach his face. The man looks apprehensive, perhaps, but mostly unshaken. His gaze roves over the room, lingers on Jongdae’s shelves of magical items, and glances upstairs. “Luhan?”

“Nothing upstairs,” a voice answers. Quiet footfalls herald  _ Luhan _ ’s descent back to the first floor. He must have been what Baekhyun had heard earlier. 

“What’s this?” Jongdae turns his head, watching as another (much larger) figure approaches. The hunter toes at the grimoire laid open on the floor. “A grimoire?"

The hunter who’d warned them earlier turns, his eyes falling to the book on the ground. He walks over, his frame more relaxed now that they’ve cleared the whole house. “Tao!” He calls, no longer keeping his voice down, assuming the home is empty. A figure appears at the doorway. 

“We should turn on some lights,” he says. Jongdae’s blood runs cold, but Baekhyun appears unphased, merely shifting his stance. When Luhan flicks on the lights, the temporary moment between dark and light seems to last longer than it normally does. Baekhyun’s open hand shimmers, he’s bending the light around them once more, keeping them from being recognized by the hunter’s eyes.

It’s a simple trick of magic, manipulating the light, but it requires a degree of precision to do so properly. To actually conceal the human person. And, given Baekhyun is so powerful, it’ll be more of a feat to keep his image completely concealed now that he’s taken a mortal form. 

“Well, this is a summoner’s circle. So, you were right about powerful magic being done here, Yixing,” the man—more like a boy—states, addressing the most stoic of the hunters. Yixing cocks his head, a clear indication for Tao to continue speaking. “And that grimoire is chock full of incantations and notes.” He picks up the book and cradles it gently in his arms. Jongdae’s skin crawls, lip curling in distaste as the hunter flips through the pages in the book. It is not  _ his  _ to be touching.

He pauses a few pages from his starting point and glances at the circle on the ground. “Hyeon,” he reads out loud. Baekhyun’s energy seems to swell, his magic crackling at the edges, control straining. A name is a powerful thing. “He was summoning one of the seven natural gods. He’s the fourth one, the Blood Moon,” the hunter states. Jongdae’s eyes narrow.

“And what does that mean?” Yixing asks, meandering over to Jongdae’s trinkets, picking up a skull and inspecting it curiously. Probably trying to decide if it is real or not. 

“It means this summoner is very powerful, gifted even. The wax on these candles is still hot. The summoning happened recently.”

“How do we know it didn’t fail?” The only remaining unidentified hunter says. Luhan snorts, muttering  _ Yifan  _ under his breath. Jongdae can barely conceal a scoff.

“The circle is an active gateway, that’s how we lost Kim.” Yixing answers deadpan. “When a summoner is pulled into hell, the gateway closes so that the daemon can ensure they will not escape. An active gateway means a successful summoning. You should know this.” 

Yifan lets out a soft  _ oh _ while Tao crouches down to the ground, book in hand. He’s inspecting the offerings that still sit at the edge of the circle. “A chalice of blood. The book says lamb’s or child’s blood works best, so we can assume it is one of those two.” He leans closer, keeping himself steady, wary of the circle’s danger. “Pomegranates and grapes, just general foodstuffs,” he continues, “it’s a typical collection of offerings outside of the blood, but it’s expensive. I don’t doubt that this daemon accepted the gifts.”

“Is there evidence of a pact?” Luhan asks curiously, plucking the skull from Yixing’s hands and setting it back down on the shelf. 

Tao begins to shake his head, but Yixing speaks up. “There’s blood on the floor here. Ichor over there.” The hunters glance at the splatters. Tao sucks in a breath. 

“Well, then yes.” Silence falls for but a few moments before Tao continues, slowly, as if he doesn’t really want to say what he’s thinking. “This daemon is the natural demon of light and dark, day and night. And… though we cleared the house, we’ve also been watching all of the entry-points…”

His suggestion hits everyone at once. The idea that perhaps they aren’t alone as they thought causing their limbs to stiffen. 

Yixing flicks off the lights before anyone blinks. In the split second of change, Baekhyun’s illusion fails to adapt, and they are visible. 

The room explodes. 

Yifan and Luhan both pull knives from their belt. Tao snaps the book shut and steps out of range of the summoning circle. Yixing’s gun points right at Jongdae’s chest. 

Even though Baekhyun’s magic crackles like a live-wire, Yixing hesitates. He must see the shock on Jongdae’s face. The hesitation is all Jongdae needs to push forward with his own magic. He’s not as good at defensive magic as he is offensive, so he immediately takes his chance. 

Yixing’s gun explodes in his hands, but fails to injure him. He’s wearing charmed rings. Jongdae attacks again, his magic rippling through the floor and throwing it up like a wave, knocking the hunter backwards. Next to him, Baekhyun flicks his wrist. The sound of shattering glass echoes through the house. Then, the wood of Jongdae’s door splinters and breaks away from the frame. And then, with a dull thundering noise, Jongdae’s wards are ripped apart.

Baekhyun laughs even as he dances out of reach of both Yifan and Luhan’s blades. Jongdae understands. The hellions wandering the streets will soon catch scent of their magic. They’ll grow greedy. They’ll come flocking to Jongdae’s home. “Yixing, we can’t take them, not even with you on our side,” Tao shouts.

Jongdae understands what he means when Yixing opens his hand and magic, powerful, defensive magic blasts outward. Jongdae falters, throwing up his own defenses just in time to save himself from the recoil of Yixing’s magic hitting his own. Except, as his energy thrums through the room, Jongdae’s able to distinctly tell that it…  _ isn’t  _ his own. 

His confusion doesn’t have time to take root. Yixing is attacking forwards now, his palms open, his breath whispering incantations, and Jongdae counters him distractedly, wholly unprepared. 

A howl sounds in the distance. Yifan dodges one of Baekhyun’s blades—when he summoned them, Jongdae doesn’t know—and hooks his hand in Yixing’s hoodie, dragging him away from the fight. “Tao!” 

The hunter makes the split decision to drop the book—smart because Jongdae  _ would  _ have chased him for it—and dashes for the doorway, just barely ducking underneath Baekhyun’s reach. “Hyeon!” Jongdae calls out, refraining from calling the daemon by his chosen name in front of the hunters, “let them run.” 

As quickly as the fight had begun, it stops, the hunters taking their option to retreat, and Baekhyun heeding Jongdae’s request. It does not detract from the fact that Jongdae’s wards are in shambles though. He’s only got a few minutes before  _ he  _ has to deal with the coming hellspawn. Immediately, he begins collecting items from around his house and shoving them into a bag charmed to be bottomless. 

Baekhyun’s collecting mana from the remains of Jongdae’s wards. “I thought you said hunters did not have witch’s blood.”

“They don’t. That hunter, Yixing, wasn’t using magic that was his own.” 

“A conduit then? Perhaps he is possessed?”

“No.” 

Baekhyun picks up the skull Yixing had touched, his eyes glazing over ever so slightly as he peered into the magical threads still clinging to the object. “He’s seraphic,” the daemon says, lip curling into half a snarl, “was probably calling on the grace of a religious power.”

“You are a god, no?”

“Not in the same breath. There are natural gods and created gods. Earthly pantheons,  _ mortals _ , worship created gods.” 

Jongdae plucks the skull from Baekhyun’s hands and places it in his bag, then collects various crystals and bags of spices from the shelf, dumping them in the satchel as well. “Is one more powerful than the other?”

“No, not really,” Baekhyun answers, “but seraphs are not limited to a singular religion and they are not a facet of created gods. They are merely energies that bind to a god.” Jongdae beckons him towards the door and they step out into the night. He continues, “For example, I have seraphs within my court—as do all my brothers. They are the daemons hidden in someone’s shadow, someone’s reflection in a mirror, the memory of a face conjured up in a dream.”

Jongdae nods, “Interesting, can they give us any assistance in finding a  _ safe _ place to stay tonight?” Baekhyun snorts, shakes his head, but in the very same breath, Jongdae notices his form glittering, light warping around him, masking his form from view.

Jongdae does the same for himself as they walk, casting a dormant ward over himself so that it won’t attract attention until it’s triggered. Baekhyun’s eyes narrow when he notices an imp hurtling down the street ahead of them, then answers, “No, they aren’t worldly. But you are. Don’t you have friends, little summoner?”

“My name’s Jongdae,” he says, “And I  _ do  _ have friends. But I didn’t want to impose on them so late at night.”

“Your home was ransacked by hunters. Surely, that is no longer imposing on someone?”

Jongdae huffs, pulls his phone out of his pocket. It rings once, twice, three times before it’s picked up. “Hey, can I drop by? My wards are compromised.” There’s a sigh from the other end of the line, then a mumbled sound of affirmation. Jongdae hangs up.

“We’ve got a place to stay, come on.”


	2. Nephilim

Kyungsoo’s face is deadpan when he opens his apartment door and takes in the scene. Chanyeol peers over his shoulder, ash marring his pretty face. He must have been performing spells or something. “Who’s this?” Kyungsoo asks, blocking the doorway.

“Baekhyun,” Baekhyun says, smirking, his presence infinitely more impressive than everyone else’s. Even Chanyeol, who towers over the daemon, narrows his eyes and shrinks back infinitesimally. “I’m a friend of Jongdae’s,” the way Jongdae’s name rolls off his tongue is decidedly otherworldly. Kyungsoo’s eyes narrow and he purses his lips.

“I pacted with him, Kyungsoo, no need to be so suspicious,” Jongdae says, gently pushing past the other summoner and letting himself into the home. Chanyeol ruffles his hair after a minute pause, but when Jongdae casts a look back, Kyungsoo and Baekhyun are still staring at one another. Baekhyun reeks of confidence bordering on arrogance and Kyungsoo is tense with suspicion. “Soo,” he coaxes, “you can trust him. We’ve got a blood oath. My mother recommended him.” 

It’s probably the fact that Ms. Kim recommended the daemon that makes Kyungsoo step back. His mother has a reputation for being powerful  _ and  _ well-researched when it came to the creatures beyond the veil. “All right, we only have the couch. A young alchemist Chanyeol was tutoring blew up the guest bedroom,” Kyungsoo explains. Chanyeol protests loudly as he returns to the kitchen, which is glowing with a faintly red hue.

“Liquid mana?” Baekhyun asks, jerking his head at the pots. Chanyeol looks up, eyes widening.

“Yes! These batches are red herrings though. They actually drain the drinker’s magica,” he explains. Baekhyun hums, impressed, and walks over to the counter, allowing Chanyeol to launch into a chat about his work.

Kyungsoo grips Jongdae’s arm and tugs him down a short hallway and into his shared bedroom with Chanyeol, shutting and locking the door. “What happened?”

“I’ve been wanting to pact for a while, and my mother’s notes were the most positive on this particular daemon, so I attempted a summoning. It was successful, but right after we pacted, some hunters broke into the house.” Kyungsoo sucks in a breath. “Baekhyun had illusioned us into invisibility, but one of the hunters—I don’t even know how he realized it would work—switched the lights really fast and the illusion broke.”

“They tend not to think that far, weird,” Kyungsoo muttered. He’s had more than a few run-ins with hunters thanks to Chanyeol’s frequent dealings with them on the down-low. He would know better than most what is typical hunter-thinking.

“I know, but Soo, that wasn’t the weird part. One of the hunters… Baekhyun called them seraphic? From what I understand that’s something like a priest?”

“Yeah, but they don’t normally have a denomination. Some do, but most don’t. Exorcists tend to be seraphic, but so do shamans and the like. What was it like?”

“He used magic. I could tell it wasn’t  _ his _ , but he was the one commanding it. I wasn’t prepared. If I had been, we’d probably have been able to chase them out  _ without  _ Baekhyun having to shred my wards and cause a panic,” he huffs. “That house was a perfect conduit too, my mother had it built specifically to complement spell-casters,” he groans.

Kyungsoo pats his shoulder soothingly, “I feel better knowing the story, and I know you’ve been planning to pact for a while now, but… why tonight?”

“The solstice is coming up in a couple of months,” Jongdae says, “Baekhyun will be most powerful that day. I have business to do that requires magic as strong as his.” 

Kyungsoo arches a brow, but doesn’t press, despite Jongdae being purposefully vague. Jongdae’s struck by how good a friend Kyungsoo is. He doesn’t ask many questions and he’s always got his back. It’s admirable, really. He laments briefly that perhaps he should try harder to do better for Kyungsoo—honestly, it’s like he’s freeloading on the other witch’s kindness at this point. “Well, in any case, I’m glad you’re okay,” he glances down at Jongdae’s clothes. 

Jongdae follows his gaze, peering at his shirt and hands. He’s stained with a mixture of animal blood and pomegranate juice, even the ashy residue of Baekhyun’s original summoning. He cringes. He looks like a mess. “Why not you go run a bath, you know where the guest bathroom is, right? It—thankfully—survived the explosion.” Kyungsoo suggests. Jongdae grins happily and plants an exaggerated kiss on his cheek.

“I love you, thank you,” and he lets himself out of the bedroom. He passes the kitchen, sees Baekhyun and Chanyeol still engrossed in conversation, then lets himself into the guest bedroom. 

They weren’t kidding when they said it had been destroyed. Ash and scorch marks run up the walls and ceiling. The bed frame is a melted mass in the corner of the room, and the alchemical station Chanyeol must have set up for his student is in a similar state. It’s more than a little alarming to have to weave around the destruction to get to the bathroom door. The door is streaked with burnt wood, and the doorknob has melted into something vaguely resembling a lever, but when he swings the door open, the bathroom is still pristinely white and clean.

He happily strips out of his clothes and piles them neatly on the counter before turning on the bath, stepping into the empty tub. Feeling the water creep up over his body is infinitely soothing, and quickly lulls him into relaxation, his muscles untensing and his mind blanking. He’d not realized how on edge the break-in earlier that night had made him.

Kyungsoo comes in a few minutes later to collect Jongdae’s clothes for the wash, and disappears out the door. Jongdae turns of the faucet and casts a spell to keep his head above the water as he closes his eyes and allows himself to drift off, not fully sleeping, but certainly not awake.

He doesn’t think anything of the door swinging open again until he hears a tutting tongue and the tinkling of fine jewelry. He looks up and meets Baekhyun’s gaze. “Hello,” the daemon says softly. “I was told to bring you these,” he holds up some Pikachu-print boxers and a T-shirt, smirking when Jongdae blushes. 

“You can just put them right there,” he says, pointing nodding at the counter and settling back into the water, his eyes sliding closed again. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Baekhyun hums. Then, “Where is the ritual in soaking if you’re not going to use salts or oils?” Jongdae can hear him approaching, then the delicate ripple of his fingertips touching the surface of the water. 

“I’ll be getting out soon, no need to waste Kyungsoo’s stores, hm?” He says, gripping Baekhyun’s wrist and removing it from the water. The daemon snorts, then gets up from his crouch to look around in the bath cabinet. He fetches a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, then a bar of handmade soap, and finally a small bottle of oil. Hyacinth, Jongdae notes by the smell. 

He upends a few drops into the bath water, then settles at the head of the bath. He scoops bath water up with a cupped hand and runs it through Jongdae’s hair, soaking it so he can build a lather with the soap. “Relax, summoner, I’ve been worshipped for  _ many  _ years,” he says, running his hands through Jongdae’s raven-dark locks, working in the soap. For a moment, Jongdae isn’t sure he can relax, at the mercy of the daemon. 

They are pacted, but that doesn’t mean Jongdae trusts him at his most vulnerable, naked and fatigued. But, he wills himself to relax anyways, settling more deeply in the water. He sighs as Baekhyun massages the soap through his hair, rubbing soothing circles into his scalp. He feels like he’s floating when Baekhyun’s hands travel down his neck, washing and massaging all at once.

He coaxes Jongdae to sit up in the water, which he does, and lathers his body, all the while unknotting the tension in his back and shoulders. “Isn’t this nice?” Baekhyun asks, his voice echoing in the silent bathroom. Jongdae nods, moaning as Baekhyun’s hands soothe out a particularly tender spot. 

“It is, thank you,” he says. Baekhyun gets up and Jongdae can see that he is grinning as he fetches a towel from the rack. He holds it out for the summoner, waiting patiently as Jongdae rinses the rest of the lather from his body and steps out of the tub, the pleasantly flowery scent of the oil following him. His skin is glistening, glowing with health. He feels rejuvenated as he tugs the towel around himself.

“The others left dinner on the stove. They’ve gone to bed,” Baekhyun tells him before leaving Jongdae to get dressed in peace. 

When Jongdae emerges, Baekhyun is sat at the kitchen table perusing through Kyungsoo  _ and  _ Jongdae’s grimoires. “Grimoires are personal, you shouldn’t touch without asking,” Jongdae says smoothly, rounding the kitchen counter to see an Indian curry sitting on the stove. 

“Mhm, I’m sure they are,” Baekhyun says unphased. He taps his nail against one of the pages, almost cooing. “Ah, you both have summoned Sehun-ah,” he says delightedly. Jongdae rifles through his memory, trying to put a face to the name. Yes, another eclipsical. Another natural god, that of wind and aging. “I’ve missed seeing him. He’s pacted to a mortal. The same one Kai is pacted to,” he flips through the next few pages, humming a tune under his breath.

“You only have Sehun and I in your books. Are the eclipsicals not interesting enough to warrant summoning?”

“Less so than you and Sehun,” Jongdae says. Baekhyun snorts, mutters something under his breath about the reason likely being that he and Sehun are the easiest to summon—they  _ are  _ the only eclipsicals that don’t require live sacrifice. It would make sense.

Baekhyun flips Kyungsoo’s book closed, but continues to peruse through Jongdae’s. Since it belonged first to his mother, his grimoire  _ is  _ much larger and filled with much more information than Kyungsoo’s. Baekhyun chuckles at some of the entries, frowns at others. He reaches a page in the book marred with scorch marks. 

Despite all of Jongdae’s efforts to cover the page, his mother’s charmed ink still shines through. “This is the daemon that slaughtered your mother,” Baekhyun says without mincing his words. Jongdae almost flinches, but it’s been a long time and he can handle this. 

“It is,” he confirms. Baekhyun could say something, but this isn’t a conversation they have to be having right now. He closes the book and Jongdae lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

“Summon me in the morning, Jongdae. I have business to take care of elsewhere,” the daemon says. Jongdae nods, watches as Baekhyun melts in a shadow, then disappears entirely. 

Kyungsoo’s going to make the connection between Baekhyun and the demon that killed his mother soon enough, and knowing that, Jongdae decides sleep is a top priority. He’ll deal with Kyungsoo in the morning.

***

He wakes up the next day, at the sunset. Obviously, his body had been more fatigued than he had thought. Kyungsoo is out of the house, Chanyeol tells him a few minutes later, but he’s up to head back to Jongdae’s place to see if there’s anything they’d like to salvage.

But, as much as Jongdae likes Chanyeol, the man’s magical prowess is weak when it comes to offense; his skill is in brewing and potion-making. There he shines. So, he regretfully declines Chanyeol’s offer to join him, and instead reaches out to his bond with Baekhyun, only calling out to him once he’s stepped out of Chanyeol’s shared apartment and onto the landing. Baekhyun materializes out of the shadows, a massive dog weaving between his legs as he steps onto the material plane.

“Jongdae,” he greets.

“Baekhyun,” then, “is this a hellhound?” He reaches out and ruffles the giant dog’s fur. It’s something of a mix between a wolf and a mastiff, with strong, pudgy jowls, but a long wiry coat. It growls, but pushes its head into Jongdae’s hand. 

“I figured she would be good company if we’re going back to your home. Her name’s Byeol.” Jongdae’s lip quirks and he pats the dog’s head a little more before shoving his hands back in his pockets. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m hoping not to come across anything  _ too  _ nasty, like a banshee or a more impressive demon, but you never know,” he says. Baekhyun nods, coaxing Byeol to his side. They both set off back for the house. Since the sun is only just setting, there are very few creatures about on the streets, but humans are walking about quite freely still. Some are hurrying for their homes, others are relaxed, perhaps daring something from the hells to attack them.

They near a group of teens sitting outside of an abandoned building, and perhaps it is the hound, or perhaps it is Baekhyun’s style that catches their attention. Jongdae watches with narrowed eyes as they jeer, hype one another up, try to pressure someone into picking a fight.

They succeed. Just as Baekhyun and he begin to pass them, one of them stands up, reaching out with both hands to try and shove Baekhyun off the sidewalk. 

The daemon dematerializes and reappears a few steps ahead. The kid slams into Jongdae instead. 

He snarls, his magic crackling in the air. But if he lashes out, it’ll only be a matter of time before hunters catch up to him. At just the simple slip of control, infinitesimal in power, any nearby hunter’s charms would surely be going off right now. In fact, he catches one of the teen’s eyes and watches curiously as the kid flinches, hand instinctively clutching a bracelet on their wrist.

_ Oh.  _ Isn’t that interesting. A young hunter. 

He refrains from fully lashing out though, knowing it would bring him too much attention. Baekhyun’s dematerialization, however, marks him very obviously as something otherworldly. So, Jongdae does what any self-preserving witch would do, and pretends as if he doesn’t know him, gasping loudly. 

Baekhyun, for his part plays the role, grinning at the kids, his fingers lengthening into long black claws. The group of kids quickly turn their attention from Jongdae and place it on Baekhyun. In the very next moment, they’re shouting warnings into the air and retreating backwards, away from what is obviously a high-level daemon. Jongdae takes the minor chaos it causes to make his own escape, crossing the street and disappearing into an alleyway. He doesn’t look back to see how Baekhyun deals with the situation, and merely hopes that the daemon doesn’t do anything  _ too  _ drastic.

Eventually, the sounds of the ruckus fade away and he steps back out into the dying sunlight. Baekhyun melds out of thin air, his hair slightly unkempt, and grins at Jongdae. His knuckles are a little bloody. Jongdae’s lip curls in distaste, but he doesn’t ask. They’re nearly home. “Where’s the dog?” He does say.

“I let her have her dinner early,” Baekhyun hums. “Unfortunately, they’ve banished her already. She’s reforming in the Pit again,” he says. 

“I noticed the hunter there, was he really able to kill her that quickly?”

“Help showed up fast,” Baekhyun says, wiping his hands on his shirt. They’re nearing Jongdae’s home. With luck, there won’t be anyone there, though, because of the altercation the night before he’s worried there will either be a hunter investigation going on or a pack of hell creatures hanging around. 

But, as they watch from across the street, it appears empty. Silent and a little foreboding, all of the electricity having short-circuited when Bakehyun destroyed the spells lacing the home. It is one of the first suburban houses, and as a result, it looks almost out of place near the sprawling city-scape. “Don’t use any of your magic, Baekhyun. I’m worried they’ve put sensors of some sort here. To catch me if I ever came back.” Baekhyun agrees with a nod of his head, and Jongdae looks back at his home.

He twists one of his charmed rings around his finger then crosses the street. Baekhyun follows him silently. Even so, before they step inside, Jongdae puts a finger to his lips, a reminder that they must be quiet. 

He steps inside the house, watching the shadow the house casts creep up his body until he is completely submerged in the murky dark. Baekhyun steps inside behind him and almost immediately seems to mold to the shadows, despite the fact that he isn’t using any magic. It must be relative to the fact that Baekhyun is  _ the _ daemon of the dark. 

For a house Jongdae has lived in his entire life, walking into it now, he’s apprehensive. It’s foreign to him. Dust catches the dying sunlight in the doorway, but beyond the small frame of light, the house is pitch black and Jongdae can’t cast any spells to help him see lest he trigger a trap.

So, he fishes out his phone and taps the flashlight on, dimming it significantly so that once he’s farther within the house it will be hard for anyone outside of the house to see it. He flips open the flap on his bag and begins clearing his shelves, sticking every book he owns inside the charmed purse. Baekhyun helps by gathering items Jongdae can’t fit in his (smaller) hands, clasping large handfuls of gems with ease and dropping them into the bag.

As the minutes tick by, Jongdae becomes more lax about an altercation. No one’s confronted them yet, so he chances talking. “I hate that I have to leave this place,” he says bitterly, half of him simply talking his frustrations aloud, half of him actually confiding in Baekhyun. 

The daemon hums, “I imagine. It seems very reminiscent of your mother. There is a lot of history in this home.”

“Yeah,” he says softly, moving into the kitchen and collecting a few kitchen spices, bags of tea, and his mother’s old teapot. “Let’s go upstairs. I have some things I want to get from my bedroom,” he directs, leading the way up the stairs. He cringes at the familiar creak beneath his feet (if the home weren’t empty, he’s sure that would have immediately given away his position) but sighs in relief when he reaches the top landing and steps into a familiar, carpeted room.

“Where do you keep your jewelry?” Baekhyun asks. Jongdae points him to the closet and the daemon turns to go collect the powerful trinkets. A moment later, though, all Jongdae hears is a sharp gasp. Then, a curse, both human and daemon. One in a modern language, one in the language of ancients.

Jongdae’s blood runs cold and he turns from rifling in his nightstand to see Baekhyun’s lips rise in a snarl as a pure white blade digs into the place just beneath his ribs. His fingers curl around the doorframe, his knuckles turning white, and he begins to turn into a smoke.

He’s not been killed. No earthly blade would be able to kill a daemon of his rank. He is, however, banished, much like his hellhound from earlier in the day. And, now that Jongdae’s pacted with him, he can  _ intimately  _ feel what it’s like. His insides flip and his head pounds with sharp, radiating pain. All of his bones seem to rattle and his heart begins to beat faster and faster.

He gasps and falls to his knees, pain wracking his frame. His eyes squeeze shut on a particularly bad wave of pain, but as soon as it passes, his eyes snap open and up at the closet doorway.

It is the seraphic hunter, and though he’d just banished Baekhyun back to the oblivion, now that he sees Jongdae nearly  _ convulsing  _ in pain, he seems to have second thoughts about killing him too and  _ really  _ severing Baekhyun from the mortal plane. 

Jongdae thinks it’s interesting how one moment a hunter can absolve themselves to thinking they’re doing the right thing by killing innocent magic users, to in the very next, looking as guilty as they know they are. It’s obvious that Yixing—that was his name, right?—is unprepared to deal with exactly what banishing a pacted demon does to its other half. 

But, Jongdae can’t hold onto the thought for long, another wave of pain searing through his head. He wails, curling up, hugging himself as if it will relieve him. And, as his body struggles to quantify and adjust to the pain of losing what is essentially his spiritual other half (if only for a short time), the hunter merely watches with a mildly concerned gaze.

So, while it appears he’s sympathetic of Jongdae’s pain, he’s certainly not sympathetic enough to  _ do  _ anything about it. Jongdae would welcome a knife to his gut right about now.

Jongdae gasps and sobs for a long while, anywhere from half an hour to even longer before the pain begins to recede to a dull ache. He gradually unfurls from his crumpled position and shoves himself into sitting position. 

When he meets the hunter’s gaze next, he snarls, “ _ Fuck _ you.”

Yixing jolts out of his shocked silence. His eyebrows arch haughtily, and just that bare display of superiority has Jongdae growling and calling his magic up into his finger tips. His hands sparkle with electricity, thin ropes of white lightning wrapping around his fingers. The magic crackles in warning.

Yixing drops back into a more defensive pose, one that holds out his charmed rings in front of him, but neither of them strike.

Jongdae is the one to break the tense silence again. “So I understand you’re a hunter and all, so killing daemons is your  _ thing _ , but what the fuck?” He jerks his head at his bag lying neatly on the floor where he’d dropped it and then at the piles of jewelry sitting in the closet doorway. “Like, is it really in your code of honor to force people out of their homes when we’re not doing anything?” 

Yixing tuts his tongue, “Summoning daemons is not  _ nothing, _ ” he warns. 

“Hyeon is an eclipsical. A god of dual-nature. He’s not the type of daemon you’re thinking of.”

“My friend said he is one of the seven natural gods. The Blood Moon.”

“Yes and no,” Jongdae corrects, scowling, “The summoning is more nuanced than that. _Baek_ _Hyeon_ is light and dark, life and death. I summoned his weaker form—meaning as he is in this form, he is not the Blood Moon. If I summoned his whole self it is more likely that I would be dead than talking to you now.” 

Yixing’s eyes narrow. He still seems hesitant to try and arrest or kill Jongdae, so he has time to stall. He has no idea how long it takes for a daemon like Baekhyun to reform given how powerful he is. “Why did you summon him, then, if it’s not to cause trouble?”

“I want to close the veil,” Jongdae says very clearly, knowing as he says it that he’s won the hunter over. Yixing’s eyes glaze over, thinking of a world decades in the past. “I need Hyeon in order to close it,” he purposefully omits the fact that before this happens, he’ll have to summon  _ all  _ of Baekhyun’s essence. Life and death as well as light and dark. 

Yixing lowers his arms and relaxes somewhat, though there’s still a lot of distrust in his eyes. Before he can interrogate Jongdae any further, though, there is a sound of hundreds of bells chiming, a cacophony of dogs barking, then a sharp whistling sound that threatens to deafen them both. The floorboards peel back and Baekhyun drags himself into the mortal realm once more. 

His expression is as wild as his hair and he snarls at Yixing. Jongdae can feel the threads of magic in the room pull taut, ready to snap. The floorboards return back to their places, shutting out the noise from Baekhyun’s realm. 

“Baekhyun, wait.” His command drags the daemon’s attention away from Yixing and back onto him. Baekhyun’s eyes are an empty, obsidian black. No light enters them. His body is tense with the desire to lash out against the hunter that had banished him.

It turns out that daemons as powerful as Baekhyun reform quickly. 

Yixing raises his blade and Baekhyun’s attention snaps back onto him, ignoring Jongdae’s original command. With a pass of his hand, the blade flies from Yixing’s grip and embeds in the wall. With another pass of his hand, he shoves Yixing into the doorframe. Jongdae casts a cushioning spell just before Yixing’s skull can crack on the impact; he bounces off of the wood harmlessly.

“I said wait!” Jongdae snarls, at  _ both  _ of them, really. It’s really no use. Baekhyun rips down Jongdae’s cushioning spell and slams Yixing against the doorframe again. At the sound of cracking bones, he smiles. Jongdae’s eyes widen. 

Baekhyun is very powerful, and Jongdae only has so much control over him. “You promise your summoner  _ loyalty!  _ Why do you disobey my command?” He yells again. This  _ does  _ get Baekhyun’s attention. He refrains from striking out at the hunter again, finally withdrawing away from the doorframe, to stand behind Jongdae. 

His face shows no remorse though, not even when Yixing whimpers and stumbles upright again. Jongdae, assuming the situation is back under control, slowly gets to his feet and looks up at the hunter’s face. Yixing stares at him hatefully, clutching his broken arm close to his chest.

Jongdae can feel the subtle tinge of magic, though. Yixing is healing. “Baekhyun, we’re leaving,” He scoops up the jewelry he had dropped and stuffs it into his bag, slinging it over his shoulders again. There’s a hum from behind him.

In a soft voice, the daemon asks, “Would you like me to put him down?” Like a dog, Jongdae thinks idly. 

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary Baekhyun. I didn’t bring you here for needless bloodshed.” Jongdae doesn’t  _ like  _ hunters and he certainly wouldn’t hesitate to kill one if it was a threat, but Yixing is weak and injured already. If Jongdae killed him, he’d feel the guilt from it much more intimately. 

And he doesn’t want that.

Baekhyun doesn’t seem too pleased, but he  _ does  _ listen. After shoving Yixing back into the closet and slamming the door shut behind him with a burst of magic. “Just so he won’t stab you in the back, Master,” Baekhyun says in his defense. Jongdae rolls his eyes, then hurries out of the house, having grabbed everything he really wanted. 

Baekhyun follows him, and like before, he seems to ambiently disappear into the shadows. Jongdae loses sight of him, but he’s more than aware of his presence, even once he steps out into the open night.

He’s given no time to decide how best to get home, though, because upon stepping out onto the porch, he’s greeted by the sight of at least four imps fighting over a carcass in the middle of the street. At the sound of Jongdae’s creaking step, they all look up, locking eyes with him.

They laugh, reminiscent of hyenas, and howl out. 

So much for not causing a commotion. 

This was supposed to be a quick in and out job. Behind him he has an injured hunter, who could be calling for back-up, and in front of him he has a gang of hellspawn to deal with. 

Or, for Baekhyun to deal with. He’s still weak from suffering half of Baekhyun’s banishment. 

“Baekhyun?”

The daemon stalks forward with a sigh, his body molding with the moonlight, becoming more like a wraith than a physical human. The first imp is ripped apart in seconds. It happens so fast, Jongdae’s not particularly worried about the rest of them—until he hears a peal of laughter from down the street. Baekhyun takes on a solid form once more, then looks at Jongdae, calling out, “Take care of the rest of these then return home.”

He slaughters a second imp before directing his attention down the street. In the flickering streetlights, Jongdae can make out two tall, twin forms. They stand silhouetted against the cityscape behind them, striking and intimidating.

Baekhyun’s form becomes wraith-like once more as he glides down the street. The two newcomers meet him in the middle. The sound of the clash sounds simultaneously like the screech of a car crash and the exaltation of church bells.

Jongdae electrifies one of the imps, watching with satisfaction as it begins to disintegrate under his magic. But the second imp doesn’t allow him the time to kill as it jumps at him, long claws outstretched and aiming to kill.

A burst of bright blue light hits the imp and throws it to the ground. Its skin begins to peel away. Jongdae has never heard a demon screech like that before. It disintegrates and Jongdae can fire off a quick spell to kill the last imp. Down the street, the remaining streetlights all begin to flicker out. Whether by Baekhyun’s doing or simply as a result of the volatile energy in the area, Jongdae doesn’t quite know. 

He turns back around and catches sight of Yixing, who had fired off the spell that had saved him from the lunging imp mere seconds before. 

Yixing’s eyes widen and he shouts something unintelligible. Jongdae doesn’t think, he just dives out of the way. The body of a vaguely snake-like creature crashes into the porch’s front steps and disintegrates. 

Jongdae looks back in the direction it came from in time to see Baekhyun opening a chasm into oblivion. From the depths, figures begin to crawl, some dog-like, others vaguely human, others snake-like. The screams of hell become all the louder. Anyone who lives on this street will have locked and bolted their doors by now, drawn their curtains, knelt in prayer.

Jongdae turns back to Yixing, and without thinking, “Come with me! Hurry!” He scrambles off the ground and takes off at a quick jog towards Kyungsoo and Chanyeol’s place. From the sound of it, Yixing has decided to follow him. “Look, I’m doing you a favor,” he says breathlessly as he slides around a corner, reaching out to drag Yixing with him. “Which means you  _ cannot  _ betray the people that live where I’m taking you. Okay?” 

Yixing tightens his grip on Jongdae’s arm and throws them against the alleyway. Before Jongdae can turn on him, send electricity running through their handhold, Yixing puts a finger to his lips. 

Jongdae falls silent, and that’s when he hears the voices. 

_ “Something’s happening on 21st Street.”  _ Someone says. Must be hunters. Now that Jongdae’s listening, he can hear the thin trill of one of those alarms they use to signal magical activity. Yixing pulls Jongdae around the corner and into the shadows. They hide behind a dumpster.  _ “Something big if the ringer is picking it up all the way from here. Normally, you have to be pretty close for one of these handhelds.”  _ The voice explains to their partner, or partners.

Yixing’s eyes flutter closed. He might recognize the voices.

But, it’s too late for them. 

Because Jongdae’s also caught wind of another sound, one that whistles down the alley with stunning clarity.

The hunters scream and Yixing opens his mouth to gasp. Jongdae claps his hand over it before any sound can escape, his eyes wide. He shakes his head. 

A second passes before another whistle runs through the alley. This one is almost familiar. All of the eclipsicals have a distinct sound. Baekhyun’s is of bells and dogs. Sehun’s is the one he recognizes now, though, the sound of birdsong and wailing wind. The sound abruptly stops. Muffled voices, speaking in the ancient tongue, the slight tinkling of laughter, the sound of bones being crushed and torn apart.

Yixing trembles in Jongdae’s hands, his eyes shutting and his hands clenching into fists. Jongdae wants to feel bad for him, he  _ does  _ a little at the very least, but he’s also none too bothered by two more hunters being off the streets. 

A hand wraps around his mouth and Yixing’s. Jongdae screams, but it is muffled, almost completely, by the palm pressed against his lips. They’re pulled deeper into the dark, and finally, this scent is familiar to Jongdae. 

Baekhyun hauls them both around another corner then turns his attention back towards the alleys, disappearing a moment later. Only a minute after that, Jongdae hears the sound of him confronting the other eclipsicals—because he is certain that that is what they are—once more.

“Come on, we have to keep going. Kyungsoo has very powerful wards though. Baekhyun strengthened them himself, as well, so they  _ should  _ stand even against Sehun and whatever the other one is.” He says, pulling Yixing back into a run. 

And they run, the minutes bleeding together as they take to the shadows to return home. It won’t be good if they run into hunters, and it certainly won’t be good if they get distracted by other hellspawn. Which is why Jongdae sighs in relief when Kyungsoo’s building comes into view again.

He jerks Yixing up the stairs onto the landing outside Kyungsoo’s apartment and then bangs on the door loudly. Kyungsoo opens the door with wide eyes, looking half horrified, half annoyed. He’s also half dressed, but Jongdae has no time to make jokes about interrupting because he’s so afraid of staying outside any longer.

He shoves his way into Kyungsoo’s apartment, dragging Yixing with him, then slams the door and deadbolts it. 

For good measure he also casts a ward over it, then a spell meant to serve as an alarm. 

“Jongdae? What the fuck?” Kyungsoo asks, much more alarmed now that he can see Jongdae’s panic. 

“Sehun and another eclipsical if I had to guess. Kai, probably, from what Baekhyun had mentioned previously. I’m weak right now, if they’d caught up to us I’d have been toast,” he says panting, relinquishing Yixing’s hand to go collapse onto the couch, snuggling up to a shocked Chanyeol. 

“And who’s this?”

“The hunter. Seraphic one.” He mumbles. Immediately the tension in the room skyrockets. 

Kyungsoo whips his gaze to Yixing, instantly on guard. “Who’s your conduit?” He asks very clearly. 

Yixing seems startled for a mere moment, then, he sighs. “One of the angels in the sixth circle.” He looks like he might want to say something else, but he winces, instead reaching to clutch at his arm. 

Oh, yeah, Jongdae had forgotten that had happened. “Baekhyun broke his arm back at the house. Can one of you help him speed the healing?”

Chanyeol nods and gets up, shoving Jongdae off his lap. He retrieves a potion from their medicine cabinet and passes it to Yixing. Unlike Kyungsoo, Chanyeol is pretty trusting, and Yixing doesn’t seem like  _ too  _ much of a threat. 

Definitely not when they hear the thud of something hitting their door. That’s a  _ much  _ bigger problem to deal with.

Everyone flinches, readying spells to cast should the wards fail. They  _ shouldn’t,  _ but eclipsicals are extremely powerful. Sehun isn’t the strongest of them, but whoever he was with had seemed to make him powerful enough to match Baekhyun in a fight.

They wait with baited breath, then the door peels open and Baekhyun steps through the opening. It shuts behind him. His hair is wild and his shirt has been torn open, a gaping cut running diagonally across his chest. He bleeds black ichor. 

“It’s rude to lock out your friends,” he comments mildly. Jongdae rolls his eyes. 

“Sorry we didn’t want to die?” He says in response. Baekhyun chuckles, pulling out a chair from the dinner table and stradling it. 

“You would have been fine. I had them handled.”

“Who?” Chanyeol asks curiously.

“Sehun-ah and Nini,” he says, “Or Kai, whatever you know him by, though I doubt you know of him at all. He’s been pacted for a very long time.” He leans his head on his arms and turns his attention to the elephant in the room—or the hunter, rather. “Now, I find it offensive that the little seraph gets your immediate trust when he put a knife between my ribs only an hour ago.” 

“You reformed that quickly?” Kyungsoo says, even as he recovers from his shock and directs Yixing to go sit on the couch, instead of standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

Yixing cocks his head, “Look, you’re the one that walked into me,  _ and  _ you’re a daemon. You can’t expect me  _ not  _ to react.” Baekhyun begins to say something, but Jongdae cuts him off with a look.

“I brought Yixing with me because if I hadn’t he was gonna die. Also, he saved my life, so I wasn’t going to just  _ not  _ repay my debt to him.” Baekhyun hums in agreement. All daemons understand debt and payment. Jongdae knew that that excuse would work for him. Kyungsoo doesn’t seem too impressed, but he does let it slide.

Chanyeol on the other hand seems perfectly happy to have a hunter in his home now that he knows Yixing isn’t “dangerous” per se. “I’ve always wanted to know what the hunter guilds were like,” he says cheerily, returning to his seat on the couch. Jongdae snorts.

“Like, how? We’re probably fairly similar to covens in terms of structure.”

“Covens are very nineteenth-century, don’t you think?” Kyungsoo says curtly. 

Jongdae sighs. “We don’t really do covens these days. The bloodlines are too diluted or don’t get along with one another to function when we all get together. Most of us go it alone or stay with our immediate family.” He taps his fingers on the leather arm of the couch. “Kyungsoo and I stick together because we’re both summoners. Chanyeol goes at it alone as an alchemist. Minseok’s got a few friends outside the city that specialize in gems and elemental spellcasting that he stays with, but again, we don’t do covens anymore.”

“The Witch Sefdalina was a coven mother and that was only thirty or so years ago?”

Jongdae snorts. 

“She’s a special case,” Baekhyun says smoothly from where he’s sat, “Sefdalina’s Cult was composed of rogue witchery. Men and women that had never had  _ family  _ or blood-bond. It’s why she was so powerful. She was, for all intents and purposes, acting as their mother and they  _ idolized  _ her.”

Yixing cocks his head, but doesn’t press the matter. However, he remains reserved about the nature of the hunters. “We have small family groups and a larger organization that directs and maintains our work in the city.” Baekhyun and Kyungsoo roll their eyes, even though Chanyeol soaks up the information happily. After a few beats of awkward silence, Kyungsoo dismisses himself, pulling Chanyeol along with him into their bedroom, and shutting the door behind them.

Jongdae relaxes into the couch, even though Yixing remains tense, alert. “You can loosen up, seraph. If we wanted to kill you, we’d have done so before going through the trouble of getting you here,” Baekhyun drawls, standing up and retrieving Jongdae’s grimoire from his bag. Jongdae watches with narrowed eyes as he flips it open and finds the scorched page they’d chosen to ignore the night before.

“Did you try to burn it out—her entry, that is?” Baekhyun asks, tracing the bold lettering visible even through all the scorching. 

“Yes,” Jongdae says curtly, leaning back and closing his eyes.

Baekhyun hums, then, “When are you going to summon that part of me again? You’ll have to have it if we are to close the veil as you wish.” 

“What does it require?” Yixing asks curiously.

“The summoning?” Baekhyun asks. Yixing nods. He closes the book and sets it down on the table. “An obsidian chalice filled with the blood of an innocent, a pomegranate, a vial of myrrh, a mirror, and a desire. The Blood Moon is a hungry being. It’s greedy and always wants. It is all consuming, all encompassing. The summoner must be uncharacteristically strong to not only survive the initial energy drain, but also to overpower the will of the daemon.” He pauses for a few moments, as if thinking, mulling something over. “Or the daemon could look favorably on the summoner, and even if they  _ are  _ too weak, could spare them and promise them loyalty.”

“Is it worth it? To summon a daemon?”

“Yes,” Jongdae breathes. “But you have to think it through. Rarely do they allow you to make mistakes. But, most aren’t inherently  _ evil  _ per se. Just… morally blind.” 

“Some daemons have multiple incarnations of themselves. I am a part of the Blood Moon, of Baek Hyeon, but I am not the Blood Moon in this capacity.”

“He is the kinder side of the moon. The side in shadow, the side that is calm and reserved in comparison to  _ Baek, _ the bloody side of the moon, the side we see.”

“Dark and light. Modern stereotype would consider the dark to be the scary side…”

“That’s not the case with a daemon like Baek Hyeon. The light is the bloody side, the side that’s ruthless and brutal. That is the half that Sefdalina chose to summon before inviting Hyeon for the completion of the ritual. She’s considered the most powerful witch in history because she summoned the Blood Moon.” Jongdae groans, then turns to glance at Yixing. “How much do you hunters even know about the tearing of the veil in the first place?”

“Only that a daemon from the deepest pit of hell tore it open and dragged a number of innocents down into hell with him, his summoner included. We tell the story as if Sefdalina is a fool and the veil ripping so wide was an unintended consequence. We believe she wanted to control it, like a gate between hell and the mortal world. She would be the most powerful person to ever live if she  _ did  _ do that.”

“Not a daemon from hell. Beyond hell. The eclipsicals visit hell, but our realms are below it and they are our own, where we rule supreme. And yes, Sefdalina overestimated her control.”

They all fall quiet, then Baekhyun stands, his body becoming little more than a wisp of smoke, then he is gone. Yixing looks troubled.

“How did you decide to become a hunter?” Jongdae says, somewhat sharply. 

Yixing flinches at his tone, then his gaze hardens. He’s got bags under his eyes. He must be tired. “My mother was a witch. She tried to sacrifice me for a youth ritual and a hunter whose charms went off was able to save me. I’ve been on their side since.”

“Most of us aren’t like that,” Jongdae says quietly. “Anytime we can avoid sacrifice, we do so. And youth is a tedious pursuit that always fails in the end. Very few witches even consider it a sustainable venture.” He falls quiet. Then, “Did you know the hunters we heard tonight?”

“I’d worked with both of them before. They’re more… cruel than I like, though, so perhaps it was a blessing.” Yixing admits softly. “I try not to be too confrontational. Or if I am, I would prefer to kill someone quickly or at least scare them off. Those two like to wear witches down until they wear themselves to the point of no return where their own magic kills them.”

Jongdae can’t imagine becoming so drained as to feel his magic stop his heart. He can’t imagine the horror of having such an intimate gift of his begin to kill him. It sounds utterly terrifying. Any guilt he’d felt about the hunters’ fate in the alley evaporates. 

“I see, but you’re not like that.” Jongdae hums, then gets up off the sofa. “You can sleep here. I’ll sleep in the arm chair for tonight. I want to be able to face the door.” He nods at the unassuming entrance, imagining the eclipsicals bursting through it and slaughtering the occupants of the house. If that  _ were  _ to happen, Jongdae would like to think he could give everyone enough warning to at least attempt to escape.

That being said, he sincerely hopes the night is quiet. 

“Jongdae. If you need help closing the veil… I’ll help. I think it’s a noble thing to do.” Yixing sinks into the couch. Jongdae chooses not to respond.

***

In the morning, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol leave to do their errands, promising that they’ll be careful of hunters. If the eclipsicals left behind any bodies from their kills last night, this area will be watched much more closely, and it was never Jongdae’s intent to drag the other two witches into his mess.

Jongdae gets up shortly after they leave and grabs his grimoire off the table where Baekhyun had deposited it the night before. He flips open to Hyeon’s page and puts a few notes down about the eclipsical’s banishment and the altercation with the other two of his kind. Even in a significantly weakened state, Baekhyun had clearly been able to hold his own. If that isn’t a testament to his power, Jongdae’s not sure what it is.

He decides not to beckon Baekhyun into their realm for the day quite yet. He wants to start devising ways to close the veil, and Baekhyun is a daemon. Jongdae can’t trust what he says. He takes the book off the table and disappears to Chanyeol’s desktop computer, pulling up a building map of the city and printing it out.

When he returns to the dining room, Yixing is stumbling around the kitchen sleepily, humming triumphantly when he finds a box of tea in one of the cupboards. He nods at Jongdae and grabs a second mug for him. Jongdae nods slightly in thanks, then turns his attention back to the dinner table. 

He places the printed map in the center of the table, then chants a quiet spell under his breath, smiling when the map stretches to cover the entire table, then becomes a 3D reconstruction of the city, complete with the current pedestrian and car traffic. Jongdae casts another spell and then the hellspawn still on their plane come into view as well, mostly clustered into alleys. Except, two very striking forms walking towards Jongdae’s old house.

“You look concerned,” Yixing comments, setting a kettle on the stove, but watching Jongdae’s actions closely, having not been exposed to very much magic outside defensive and offensive spells. 

Jongdae chuckles darkly, “The two eclipsicals from last night are going back to my property. Knowing Sehun he’s going to drain all the remaining energy that place has then loot anything valuable that we left.” Jongdae shakes his head and ignores the both of them to instead look at the map. “Do the hunters know where the rift in the veil is?”

“No,” Yixing says. Jongdae’s ring burns his finger in warning.

“I have charms that tell me when a person is lying,” Jongdae comments, but he doesn’t press the issue, only begins flattening parts of the map where there  _ isn’t  _ a heavy hunter presence. If the hunters  _ know  _ where the rift between the worlds is, they’re more likely to be guarding it.

Yixing wisely keeps his mouth shut as Jongdae works, probably because he doesn’t want to give away any hunter secrets. “If you want to help me close the veil, Yixing, you’re going to need to help me out at least a little bit here,” he says, tapping his fingers against the edge of the table.

“It’s somewhere in ninth district. Sefdalina was born there, it’s where she felt most comfortable. That’s also the part of the city with the most daemonic energy,” Yixing responds, setting a mug down next to Jongdae’s hand. Peppermint tea, nice.

Jongdae flattens the other districts so that only ninth district remains standing. It doesn’t have a lot of traffic, and it’s mostly a warehouse district, though there are a few rows of housing projects and the like. Jongdae casts another spell, this one meant to reveal magical deaths. Again, ninth district is a hub on the map, despite having a smaller population. He’d never paid attention to it before because it seemed like such an unlikely bet. Why not pick a more populated part of the city in order to sow more chaos. 

“All right, so seventh district looks promising, but the hunter’s aren’t completely sure it’s there?”

“Yeah, we’ve just been tracking movements. Hunters that were around for the original tearing of the veil were all killed by the daemon Sefdalina summoned.”

“That’s because she summoned the Blood Moon at the end of the Lunar Tetrad, when he’s at his absolute most powerful. If he had really wanted, he probably could have ripped the veil away entirely and caused the Rapture.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“The Blood Moon wasn’t fully pacted with Sefdalina. She was still extremely powerful to summon the two halves, but  _ Hyeon  _ was already pacted with another witch. One he had sworn to protect. Which is why we got only got a problem, not a catastrophic Judgement Day, you know?” Jongdae says, remembering his mother fondly. “Which is why I want to pact with Baek Hyeon fully. I want the Blood Moon, because if I survive the pact with both halves, they cannot kill me, at least, not on their terms.” 

“I see. But can you realistically survive being pacted to what sounds like the most powerful eclipsical?”

“I don’t know yet. Besides, Baekhyun isn’t the  _ most  _ powerful eclipsical. There are at least three others I’ve heard about that are stronger than him—unless it is on a Blood Moon at the end of the Lunar Tetrad, which causes an amplification of Baekhyun’s power.” Jongdae shakes his head and turns his attention back to the map. “Moving on, how difficult would it be to scout out this district?”

“If you went during the day and kept your magical sensor completely null, you could walk beyond most of the sensors and avoid a confrontation with most of the hunters, though some might question your whereabouts,” Yixing explains. “We don’t like being assigned that district, so most hunters that are there either hate their job or are hardliners, meaning they’re way crueler and ill-intentioned than the rest of us.” 

He points at a number of spots on the street, “See these areas,  _ really  _ dangerous for magical folk. All of these hunters have a number of charmed instruments that help them root out witches. They’re the killers in our organization, and they’re bitter because most of us don’t agree with how they do things.”

“All hunters kill, stop trying to act so righteous,” Jongdae snaps tiredly.

Yixing’s lip curls, “Most of us kill in self-defense or in the defense of others. Witches that parade daemons down the streets, those that bond with hellspawn,  _ those  _ types of witches. Otherwise, I prefer to heal.” 

Jongdae shakes his head, but doesn’t press the issue, returning to the map, flattening it back into a paper and slipping it into his pocket. “All right then, are you coming with or do I have to lock you in here?”

“I’ll come with,” Yixing says, retrieving his leather jacket from the back of the couch and shrugging it on. Jongdae’s not sure he trusts the hunter, for all he knows he could be walking right into a trap, but he’s not really got a choice. Leaving Yixing here alone and unattended could put a returning Chanyeol and Kyungsoo in danger. 

They leave shoulder to shoulder, Jongdae charming the door to lock behind them. Then, they set off in the direction of the warehouse district. He’d made the conscious decision not to summon Baekhyun for this recon, but he does remind himself that he can call the daemon if there’s any trouble. He’d just really prefer they not  _ have  _ any trouble.

In the daylight, the streets are far less intimidating, and the air of danger surrounding them is much different. There are more hunters around, though, so Sehun and Kai must have left some evidence of their kills the night before. Yixing pulls his hood up and hunches his shoulders. Jongdae mirrors his posture, but doesn’t have a hood for himself, feels like it's somewhat more conspicuous.

And he’s right, because a few minutes later, a very tall man bumps shoulders with Yixing and another man tugs his hood down. “Damn, I knew it was you!” The taller says. Yifan, from the night when Jongdae and they had fought. “What are you doing looking so suspicious? Did you hear about the killing last night. Everette and Kim, gone, just like that.” Tao, the other man, snaps for effect.

“I heard about it,” Yixing says evasively, rolling his shoulders back now that his gig is up. He steps a little away from Jongdae so that Tao and Yifan can squeeze themselves into step with him. 

Tao turns to look at Jongdae critically. “Who’s this? They look familiar,” he comments, quickening his step so that he can look at Jongdae’s face more closely. 

“I’ve never met you,” Jongdae says icily, glancing away. The place is still  _ crawling  _ with hunters. He cannot risk having any of them blow his cover. Then he may as well be dead. 

“Really?” Tao says, raising an eyebrow. Off to his right, Yifan looks curious too, his eyes narrowing as he tries to place Jongdae’s voice and face. He must be unsuccessful though, because he doesn’t say anything else. “But you  _ are  _ a hunter, right?”

“He’s from home,” Yixing comments lightly, switching to Chinese. Good thing Jongdae knows the language. 

“I’m Chen,” he says calmly, reaching over to shake their hands. He then returns to his silence, still wary of their surroundings. The other two greet him, then return to chatting with Yixing, content to leave him alone for the time. They ask where Yixing’s headed, if he found anything at “the summoner’s” house. Yixing answers that he’s introducing Jongdae—Chen—to the city and that, no, he hadn’t found anything of worth.

The two hunters don’t seem entirely convinced, but they know when to leave a topic, and they quickly switch gears, chatting about the commotion on these streets just a few hours ago, during the night. Yixing feigns ignorance, as if he didn’t experience everything for himself.

Eventually, Yifan and Tao pull away, inviting Yixing back to theirs for the evening. Yixing gives them a non-committal answer and watches as they take a turn in the opposite direction. “That was hell,” Jongdae comments lightly, straightening up a bit. Yixing chuckles, then nods.

“Tell me about it. Take a right here.” They turn and continue walking for another ten minutes before turning again. The journey isn’t  _ too  _ long, but with the sun beating down on them, it’s not pleasant either. Eventually though, the warehouses do begin to come into view. That’s when Yixing slows down.

“Do you have your magic under control? They’ll recognize me and my charms, but…”

“I’m wearing a necklace that blocks my magical output unless I actually cast, so yes, I’m fine,” Jongdae says. Yixing nods and they continue walking. They’re only able to get a few more steps before a pair of men stop them. They recognize Yixing almost immediately.

“Zhang. What are you doing here?” One of them asks.

“I can’t come help out?” Yixing deflects.

They snort. “Who’s your friend?”

“Chen,” Jongdae answers for himself. “I know Yixing from university,” he says softly. Yixing nods. The two don’t seem to catch the lie, but they also don’t relax or back down.

They look Jongdae up and down, then, they cross their arms, “We’ve got a lot of people out already Zhang, you should return home.” Yixing nods, and Jongdae’s about to argue with him, but something in the look Yixing shoots him tells him he’s got a plan. 

“All right, I’ll head back. Thanks,” he says with mock cheer, as if glad to be doing less work. The other hunters relax then, and let them walk away, finally going back to their own posts. Yixing pulls Jongdae into an alley only a street away. “Call your demon, tell him to come in with the whole shebang—loud, powerful, you name it. He can do a trick with the light, right?”

“Yeah, he can. Why do you want him to come in so blatantly?”

“I’m hoping that he’s powerful enough to make all of the censors go haywire. They won’t be able to pinpoint an area and if he can keep all of us invisible… well, it might just be easier,” Yixing explains. Jongdae doesn’t quite like the idea, but it’s probably the best they have. 

_ Baekhyun. Come to me… and make it a light show when you do.  _ Mere seconds later, the daemon curls out of the shadow cast by the building. Jongdae can hear the muffled sound of hundreds of light bulbs breaking. A cloud overcasts the sun and throws the sky into a shadow. 

In his pocket, Jongdae’s phone begins to vibrate, so he takes it out and throws it away before it explodes in his palm. “Make us invisible,” Jongdae snaps. Baekhyun cocks a brow, but does as asked, warping the shadows and the light around them, making them invisible to the naked eye. “Now go cause some havoc. Don’t get banished if you can help it.”

The daemon grins, then melts back into the shadows. In the distance, Jongdae begins to hear shouting. 

“Okay, we have to work fast. I want to be in and out before Baekhyun gets stabbed or something. Cause then, our illusion is gone,” Jongdae says. Yixing nods and leads him out of the alley, running freely through the streets. It looks like everything that gives off light has shattered, and most electronic devices seem to have gone haywire as well. 

They run, their feet thudding against the pavement, until they come to a relatively quiet sector of the district. Jongdae casts a spell, and a sharp whistling noise directs him to their right. Yixing follows quickly, both curious and apprehensive. “The whistle is telling me where the least miasma is. Hell consumes it, so where ever there is the least is probably near the mouth of the tear,” Jongdae supplies.

“Makes sense,” Yixing comments, out of breath, then grinds his pace to a halt, flattening himself against the wall. Footsteps. Jongdae also comes to a stop and presses himself to the brick. A minute later, three hunters come running through the alley, eyes wild and afraid.

In the distance, Jongdae hears the wail of an alarm, then an explosion. No time to think about that, he peels himself off the wall again and continues running. Yixing close on his heels. Then, his magic begins to hum. 

They must be near it.

“This one,” Yixing comments, seeing a large brick building with heavy, black iron doors in his peripheral. He grabs Jongdae’s arm and yanks him down the side alley that leads up to the warehouse door. 

“Let me think of an opening spell for it that won’t make a flash or something,” Jongdae begins to say. Yixing rolls his eyes, and hoists himself up to one of the windows. He beckons for Jongdae to follow, then he breaks the window and delicately climbs through. Jongdae follows him, a word of admonishment already on his tongue. 

“The door is probably trapped, Jongdae. If this is where the veil is and any of the Organization knows it, blowing that door open would probably kill you,” Yixing says calmly, helping Jongdae down. He casts a spell up at the window and watches it repair itself, “And don’t forget that I can cast  _ some  _ magic too.” 

Jongdae blinks, dumbfounded for a moment. Then, Yixing’s form flickers, becomes normal. Jongdae looks down at himself and groans. A mere second later, the crippling pain surges up his gut and wraps itself around his throat, throwing him to the ground in convulsions. “He’s been banished again,” Jongdae gasps. “We need- fuck- we need to hide.”

Yixing hoists him up and drags him to a doorway. It opens to a staircase, one going down, one going up. “I think we’ll go up for now. Once night falls, I don’t want to be  _ closer  _ to hell than I already am.” Jongdae mumbles incoherently, his body shivering, the pain wracking through him much like it had just the day before. Already, his pact looks less attractive if he’s always going to be suffering like this. He should just command Baekhyun never to leave hell.

They’re half way up the stairs when some great groan begins. Beneath them, the stairs begin to crack. Yixing has a second to gasp out, “They trapped the damn stairs as well?” before the concrete crumbles beneath them and sends them plunging two floors towards the bottom.

He can feel his bones crack and snap. Jongdae actually takes the brunt of the fall, Yixing landing on top of him. Yixing can  _ hear  _ intimately how Jongdae’s bones shatter, ripping through delicate skin and organs. There’s a long hiss of air that drags itself up and out of the witch’s throat.

Yixing releases him and scrambles away, even though pain shoots through his body as he does it. 

Jongdae is not dead, his eyes are open and his breath becomes gasping, the shock passing and replaced with pain. His hand curls into a fist.

Yixing should put him out of his misery.

But, he can’t. He’s never been able to kill someone after looking them in the eyes. Knowing who they are makes it too intimate. “Jongdae-yah?” He calls out warily. Jongdae groans, gasps, but says nothing. “Oh my god.” Yixing reaches forward and calls his magic up from his fingertips, gently beginning to heal part of his  _ and  _ Jongdae’s bodies.

But, he’s interrupted by a slithering noise, and then the low sound of laughter. 

He turns. He cannot see anything in the dark, and Jongdae may as well be useless for the time being. They’re vulnerable and they had just broken into the warehouse that supposedly housed the gate to Hell. 

“Who’s there?” He says, loudly, listening to his voice echo around the room. Another laugh. Then, a gnarled hand wraps around his ankle and drags him into the dark.

Once more, he’s falling, falling _ , falling. _ He crashes again, this time onto gravel. It pierces his skin and shoves his bones back out of place. Yixing screams. A bare second later he hears a louder wail, and the crunch of Jongdae’s body landing in the gravel next to him. Jongdae’s breath stutters, but again, he survives the fall. For how long? Yixing’s not sure.

Yixing’s not even sure how much time  _ he  _ has left. 

Now that he’s looking around, he sees imps, ifrits, wraiths, watching curiously, their mouths spreading into grins. He calls his magic to his hands and creates a ward around the two of them, admonishing himself for not thinking of it  _ before  _ they’d landed in hell.

An imp laughs, a grating, ear-piercing noise, and rips the ward to shreds. Yixing feels it consume the energy. And again, they are unprotected.

Jongdae’s probably much more suited to a situation like this, but he’s incapacitated for the time being. 

And Yixing’s angel cannot reach him here. She cannot outstretch her hand into this realm. 

“Jongdae, call for Baekhyun. We’re in hell, he should be able to reach us even if he has been banished, right?” 

Jongdae blinks, his head spinning, throbbing with pain, then he processes Yixing’s words. He doesn’t even have the brainpower to actually listen to what it is Yixing’s saying. He doesn’t really compute the gravity of the situation. But, he does call out. 

_ Baekhyun. We- re… in-  _

Where are they?  _ Hell.  _ He thinks at the same time as he remembers.

Silence. 

Yixing sobs, shooting off a spell to protect them from the imp that’s leaped their way. His magic isn’t as strong in hell and a spell that would kill an imp in the mortal realm only knocks it back for a few moments here.

He prepares to die, gives up, curls in on himself, when he hears the sound of dogs howling. He looks up in time to watch a great black mutt tear out the throat of the imp that had leapt at him. The others look wary now, shuffling farther away from the two humans, their eyes on something beyond them. 

Yixing turns, and from the hazy red fog, steps a figure. His body is like it is made out of glass—beautiful, with a hint of fragility. Except that his eyes, though crystalline, hold absolutely no expression. A veil covers him completely, from head to toe, held in place by a crown of crystals, bones, and bells. 

As the stranger steps out of the fog, the other hellspawn step back, scatter. Around the figure, black dogs (Grim dogs or hellhounds?) pant. Now that the stranger is closer, Yixing can hear the soft tinkling of the bells on his head. 

He looks down at Yixing and Jongdae, then curls his lip, the first show of emotion since he has appeared. “He’s dying.”

“Save him, then,” Yixing says. 

“My pact would end with his death,” Baekhyun says calmly. But he reaches down anyways and drags Jongdae’s body off of the ground with inhuman strength. In this form, he is tall, much taller than any human. His power is as apparent in his height as it is in his cadence. 

He slings Jongdae over his shoulder, and then takes Yixing’s hand, pulling him off of the ground as well. “Come along then.”

“Is this Hyeon or is it…”

“This is the both of us,” Baekhyun says calmly. “In hell we are one and the same.” He leads Yixing back into the fog. His hand is as cold and inhuman as glass, but he is strikingly beautiful for a daemon, even like this. There’s something ethereal about him.

Yixing wonders if angels look the same.

“They don’t,” Baekhyun answers, as if he could hear his thoughts. “They are more terrifying than any daemon. Daemons are made to be beautiful in order to tempt. Angels don’t have a need for beauty.” 

Fascinating. Yixing would ask more about it if he wasn’t reminded of his broken bones with every step. He drops his head and focusing on regulating his breathing and ignoring the pain. Baekhyun seems to be helping them. All he can do is trust.

After what feels like hours of walking, Baekhyun calls ou, loudly across a milky white river. On the other side of the river, a figure approaches, their form made entirely out of water, their face appearing to have been carved out of pearls. 

“Junmyeon.” Baekhyun greets. He steps into the milky river, holding both Yixing and Jongdae above its surface, only letting Yixing back onto the ground once they’re on the other side.

“Baekhyun,” Junmyeon greets. He turns his gaze to the two humans. “What are these?”

“My pacted human and what I suppose is a loyal friend of his. I’d like to see them healed, and if you can, I’ll absolve two of your debts to me,” Baekhyun intones calmly. Junmyeon grimaces, but nods slightly. 

There’s a sucking feeling, and Yixing feels like he’s left his gut somewhere far behind him. He’d closed his eyes out of shock, but now, as he blinks them open, he finds himself in a beautiful hellenic-style temple. Water flows from fountains all around them, and the crashing of waves is distinctly apparent. Baekhyun’s form hasn’t changed, but Junmyeon’s has. He looks much more human—like Baekhyun does when in the mortal realm. 

He has a very kind, masculine face, his hair pushed out of his eyes, his skin glistening with a perpetual dewiness. He smiles at Yixing, then pushes him. Yixing falls backward, splashing into a pool. When he surfaces, spluttering, he realizes that his pain is gone. 

A second later, Baekhyun drops Jongdae into the pool, then steps back impassively. 

Jongdae surfaces a minute later, gasping and cursing.

“Thank you Junmyeon. That was all I needed. We’ll talk later,” Baekhyun says, and as quickly as they had entered Junmyeon’s realm, they are leaving it. Jongdae’s stomach twists and he shuts his eyes instinctively. Yixing does the same.

When they open their eyes, they’re standing in a desert of white sand. Baekhyun walks ahead of them silently, his veil dragging across the sand. Around them, the dogs have returned, trotting alongside their master happily, tongues lolling out of their mouths.

In the distance, two monoliths of silver stone rise from the sand. Beyond them, the shimmering gates of a palace.

“Is this your realm?” Jongdae asks, looking up. The night sky is speckled with stars. Constellations seem to crawl through the sky. Around them, the sand is ever shifting, ever moving. Occasionally, Jongdae thinks he spots a skeleton being revealed, but a few seconds later, the sands cover it again.

“Yes. I cannot take you out of hell of my own volition. You’ll have to cast a spell to open another, temporary, gate to return you to Earth,” he says. 

Jongdae had only looked away for a second, but when he glances forwards again, he finds himself nearly at the palace gates. They swing open to invite Baekhyun inside. Within the courtyard, there are animals, some which can be found on the mortal plane, others that Jongdae can’t even describe. He reaches out and grabs Yixing’s hand, not remembering  _ when  _ Yixing began to feel  _ comfortable  _ to him.

Yixing squeezes his hand tightly, obviously just as off-put by their surroundings. 

“Hyunnie,” a voice calls out. Sehun, the eclipsical Jongdae’s summoned before. He’s in his mortal skin, which is why Jongdae recognizes him. “Kai and I have been waiting for you to come back. You left us in such a hurry.” He doesn’t seem to notice either of the humans as he strides forward and reaches for Baekhyun’s hand.

Baekhyun’s fantastical form melts away and becomes his mortal form, shrinking down until he is shorter than Sehun, but wholly flesh. With that change, Sehun finally looks over his shoulder and notices both humans. 

“Oh, brought friends?” Sehun asks, curling his fingers in Baekhyun’s hair and pulling him into a passionate embrace.

“Not for you, Sehun-ah. Go back to Kai. I’m not interested anymore,” he says softly. Sehun pouts, but says nothing, pulling away and striding back into the palace. 

Baekhyun beckons to Yixing and Jongdae, leading them inside. “You’ll both have to sleep in my chambers. Otherwise it’s likely my court will slaughter you in the night.” Jongdae glances at Yixing and is somewhat soothed to see him look just as distressed as Jongdae feels.

Hell is one thing, but Baekhyun’s realm is almost too quiet, too calm, to feel completely safe.

Baekhyun takes them up several staircases, into a spire. The room he shows them into houses a bed large enough for seven. The ceiling is glass, giving them a view of the open night sky. The room is decorated in dark reds, silvers, and blacks. Diamonds and quartz decorates other portions of the room, and a mirror hangs on the wall opposite the bed. But, despite how pretty the room is, it doesn’t have any pieces of furniture other than the bed. 

Baekhyun’s a simple daemon it seems. 

“Sleep off Junmyeon’s magic for now. I’ll bring you something you can eat later. Then we’ll work on getting you two  _ out  _ of hell,” Baekhyun says softly, leaving them alone in the room.

Jongdae glances over at Yixing.

“Don’t eat anything he brings us,” they say at the same time. Jongdae grins. Maybe Yixing does have some knowledge of hell and its laws. 

“We can sleep though,” Jongdae says, “There’s nothing about that in the books.” Yixing nods and follows him onto the bed. They both take opposite ends, curling up under the thick shimmering blankets, sighing at the cold silk that touches their skin. 

Jongdae strips off his shirt and pants, tossing them unceremoniously onto the floor. Yixing does the same after a pause, and then there is silence.

They sleep.


	3. Baekhyun’s Interlude

When Baekhyun returns with a silver platter piled high with food, neither the hunter nor the witch eats. Baekhyun, however, doesn’t have the same reservations, plucking bread and butter from the plate and eating it quietly. “You’ll have to draw a gate for yourself to return home. You must draw it in hell for it to work.” 

Jongdae wrings out his fingers apprehensively, “The way you say that makes it sound especially hard.”

“No, not particularly. But Sehun and Junmyeon have already begun to chat with the other eclipsicals about my guests. You’ll need a very powerful friend in order to hold them at bay once you leave my realm,” Baekhyun says softly, turning to meet the witch’s eyes. Jongdae’s mouth parts in a half-gasp when he understands what Baekhyun is suggesting.

“You want me to pact with all of you.”

“I want you to swear you will attempt my summoning the evening of your return to your realm,” Baekhyun adds.

There’s a catch here. There always is. This Baekhyun is sharper, more dangerous. Perhaps, in hell, Baek is the stronger of the two parts of one whole. “What’s the catch,” Yixing asks before Jongdae can voice it.

“Witches are supposed to pay attention to the lunar cycle. In a week’s time, there is an eclipse. A blood moon. The last of a lunar tetrad,” Baekhyun says, motioning above them at the night sky. They can see all of the phases of the moon, slightly transparent and spectral. They can also see how the real moon moves between them. Baekhyun is right. There will be a lunar eclipse very soon.

Jongdae closes his eyes, “What if the summoning fails?”

“I suppose the veil remains torn and the summoner is consumed. No?” 

There has to be something else, but it’s obvious the information is not forthcoming. “I’ll have to get my strength up while I’m here then. And we have to make another blood pact to this new promise. Your protection when we go to draw our gate, my promise to summon all of you.” 

Baekhyun smiles and slices open his hand with his nail, outstretching his bleeding palm. Jongdae turns to scrounge a knife from his discarded shirt, but Yixing is already one step ahead of him, placing his blade on Jongdae’s thigh before withdrawing to watch.

Jongdae cuts open his hand, wincing, then reaches forward, gripping Baekhyun’s hand in his own. Baekhyun’s ichor reacts like a poison with Jongdae’s blood, sending pain rushing up his hand, but the promise has been made and both of them pull away. 

“Rest more, little humans. Tomorrow I’ll teach you how to survive hell.” They had just woken up, but they are still tired, fatigue still swirling in their heads.

Baekhyun leaves the room. 

Yixing takes Jongdae’s shoulder and gently guides him back onto the bed. “You look especially troubled,” he says.

“I am, what do you care?”

“We’re in hell, together. I think we gave up on being enemies a while ago, even if it was a quick change,” Yixing says. He’s right. 

“It’s a trap. A daemon doesn’t make a deal that they won’t come out supreme in. There has to be a catch beyond what he’s implying.” Jongdae rakes his uncut hand through his hair. His cut hand is already healing.

“I thought you trusted Baekhyun.”

“I trust him, but I’m also aware that there’s more to him, you know? This is both of them,” Jongdae says. “My mother always used to tell me to be wary of how much trust I put in a daemon. She used to summon these terrifying creatures that would try and trick her into the circle just so she could show me how dangerous they were.”

“Your mother sounds like she was a good person,” Yixing says kindly.

Jongdae hums, then, brokenly. “She died trying to summon Baek. She wanted to close the veil and she already had a pact with Hyeon. Baek… he wanted her to give me to him and she refused. So he tore apart the summoning circle and dragged her into hell.” He gasps, the revelation hurting him to speak aloud. “I’m so afraid that that is what’s about to happen to me.”

Yixing watches him with unreadable eyes, dark and thoughtful. Then, he grips Jongdae’s hand in his own. “I swear I won’t let that happen.”

Jongdae laughs, sadly, and turns over, falling back asleep within minutes, having been the more worn out of the both of them. 

Yixing waits until his breathing evens out, then gets out of the bed, and opening the bedroom door. He slips out into the hallway, the stone cool under the soles of his feet. The dark is hard to navigate through, but he remembers the route they had taken and retraces it the best he can. 

Eventually, he reaches the bottom floor. One path leads back into the courtyard. Half of him wants to go outside, to explore Baekhyun’s realm. The other half wants to explore further inside the castle, but as quickly as the thought comes, Yixing dismisses it. Daemon courts are ruthless and he doesn’t want to chance running into a dining room full of them. 

So, he walks out into the courtyard. Blue, grey grass tickles at his feet, but before long even that gives way to the sand that seems to perpetuate Baekhyun’s realm. 

Yixing can hear bells, and he looks up before Baekhyun can say anything in greeting. 

Baekhyun’s glassy eyes—he is in his titan form, more akin a divine than any human—stare straight though him. “You shouldn’t be outside so alone. My dogs hunt freely on the dunes and the beasts among the stars are not prisoner to their sky. They are a danger as well,” He warns, walking next to Yixing. His footsteps make no noise, he does not breath, even his veil does not make a sound. All that Yixing can hear are those bells, soft and innocent.

“You told us you would teach us how to survive. Why not start now?” Yixing says, looking up at the glass titan. Baekhyun looks down at him, cocking his head to the side. Then, he inclines his head as if he is granting a wish.

Around them, the sand begins to sift rapidly. A sword is revealed from the depths. Yixing grips it on instinct. And not a second too soon, because the sands begin to shift again and a massive black tentacle reaches up from the depths, slamming down next to Yixing. Baekhyun watches, then, “Survive. You cannot use seraphic magic, but hell is inherently magical. If you will something to happen, it will happen.”

Yixing darts out of the way of the next hit, scrambling atop the sand. He grits his teeth and raises the sword in his hand, taking Baekhyun’s words to heart and willing that he have something stable to stand on. 

Almost instantly, the ground beneath his feet hardens into sandstone, allowing him to reposition and gain better footing. The tentacle takes another swing, crashing down next to him, splitting the sandstone under its weight. Yixing breathes in and out, remembering the first days of learning to control his magic. He doesn't have it to the same capacity here, but all magic is will.

And Yixing knows how to use his heart to get what he wants. He's always had a strong drive, a strong will to get things done. His magic has never been particularly powerful—he's never known how to use it as an entity completely of itself—but, now, if it is truly that easy.

He wants to see the tentacle turn to stone, made immobile, completely non-threatening. But, when he tries to imagine it, he finds himself struggling. Partially because his visual library hasn't ever been all that good, and partially because the tentacle is still moving, still attacking.

It sweeps him off his feet, throwing him bodily into the sand surrounding the little platform he had made earlier. He blinks against the daze threatening to blur his vision and focuses. 

The tentacle hardens into stone before it can slam down onto him. He still flinches, but the threat is gone. His breathing slows down.

"Good. You understand the concept. Now, practice it." Around them, more tentacles rise up from the sand. Baekhyun, in his divine form, strides away and takes a seat where he can watch the fighting but is intrinsically removed from it.

That just won't do. Yixing gets an idea and without truly thinking it through, he begins to wish for it to happen. Instead of attacking towards him, the tentacles shake, tremble, then direct themselves towards their summoner, Baekhyun.

The first to attack him disintegrates before it can even touch him. Baekhyun's mouth unhinges in an inhuman snarl, and the tentacles split. Three quarters of them return to Baekhyun's control and begin to attack Yixing, but the remaining quarter of them stay under Yixing's will, striking forwards distractingly.

Yixing battles with some of the tentacles, Baekhyun with the others. But, despite Yixing's ingenuity, he's not going to win this fight. Half of him is okay with that. The other half of him would love to know what winning against Baekhyun felt like. He's reminded of the time he was able to banish the daemon. He doesn't know if he'll ever feel that power again, but he would like to.

Baekhyun wins the fight after a few minutes, and he plucks Yixing up from the sand and holds him dangling in the air, level with his own face. "That was foolish."

"You won't kill me."

"Would you like to test me?"

"If you wanted to, you would have while Jongdae was unconscious. Could have just blamed it on an imp."

Baekhyun's glass face remains impassive, but he does drop Yixing back to the ground. The hunter would like to think he hit a nerve somewhere. "Go back to your chambers, Yixing."

He does.

In the next few days, Yixing trains Jongdae in this new type of magic. Unsurprisingly, Jongdae picks it up even quicker, and is much stronger at it. Probably because he's already been taught a magic very similar to this, his training surely having been much more extensive than Yixing's when he was younger. 

Baekhyun says nothing, typically just watches them flounder about. Often he creates obstacles and adversaries for them, but rarely does he participate in the fight. And when they are not practicing the magic they'll need to defend themselves in hell, Baekhyun is teaching Jongdae how to open a Gate. It is a series of complicated circles and lines, containing blood and jewelry, hopes and dreams. The physical aspect of it is one part, but the mental and emotional aspect of it is another.

It's only on the sixth day in hell that Baekhyun comes back to his chambers. Yixing and Jongdae are sat on the bed, meditating in practice for the next day—the day they had decided to open the gate on. Baekhyun does not sit on the bed, merely leans against the doorway. 

"When you pass through the Gate, seraphic boy, your magic will sour. Curdle into magic as black as my blood. Because of your time in my realm," he pauses, "eating from my realm." They had bowed to their hunger on the fifth day, each eating a pomegranate each. Baekhyun clears his throat, "You'll inevitably be tinged with my magic specifically. Like Jongdae was because of his mother's patronage to me." 

Yixing's mouth parts in shock. Jongdae looks at him sharply, concern lacing his gaze. He and the witch have grown to mutually respect one another, are perhaps even friends at this point. He knows exactly how Yixing feels right about now. "Why didn't you tell me?!" He says, horror lacing his voice.

Baekhyun stares, then shrugs. "There wasn't anything you could do. One way or another, you will have hell's magic when you leave this realm. And it's not like I dragged you here. You did that all on your own." He falls quiet. "I understand it's hard, but-"

"How can you understand? You don't know what seraph magic feels like! It's affection and faith. It is so pure compared to the type of magic your kind do."

"Do I not know? Seraphs are born from white flame. That falls under my denomination. Seraphic magic is a convoluted, purified form of my magic. And I am not hell spawn. If I so wished to step within the angelic realm, I could." His gaze is hard. "By eating from my realm, you've retained a part of your magic and gained a whole new kind. You are arguably as powerful as Jongdae once you leave this realm."

Yixing doesn't want to listen to him. After a few minutes of silence, Baekhyun leaves. Yixing wills himself to sleep before Jongdae can ask him any questions.


	4. Blood Moon

It is quickly morning—or as close to morning as it can be in a realm of eternal night. Jongdae watches Yixing stir, then helps him up out of bed. They dress themselves quickly. Baekhyun had laid out rich fabrics from his realm for them to take.

Yixing wears a silk shirt that sparkles like the night sky. Jongdae wears a silk shirt the color of silver. It glints in the changing light, almost reflective. They both look at each other, but don’t say anything. Yixing obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, and Jongdae understands. Magic is an intrinsic part of someone. To hear that it will warp and change, completely out of Yixing’s control, must be truly terrifying.

“Are you ready to return to hell?” Baekhyun asks when they appear in the throne room. He sits draped across the throne, his robes of black and silver pooling out around him, iridescent like oil. The both of them nod. Jongdae knows exactly how to draw the gate. Yixing has practiced hard to be able to defend him while he draws the gate. And Baekhyun… well Baekhyun is merely transporting them there and leaving them on their own. He’ll return to his realm and await his summoning once Jongdae and Yixing are on the overworld.

Hell is as one would expect. This time, Yixing is prepared for it, and he fares well against the imps as Jongdae crouches down and begins to draw the gate on the floor. This is a one-way gate that will close as soon as the two of them pass through it, so they don’t have to worry about letting any additional creatures slip up into the mortal realm. 

Everything seems too easy, though, Jongdae thinks fleetingly as he begins the incantation under his breath. 

In the distance, there is a noise like the sound of a whip cracking. Then, a long whistle, a whine. Jongdae looks up, distracted, and sees spires of ice rising up in the distance.

“Yixing, that’s an eclipsical, be careful! I only need a little more time.” He turns back to the chalk circles and resumes his incantation, allowing himself to get swept up in the spell. His eyes turn glassy and he sways on his knees, drawing mindlessly, his voice singing out the incantation as if it were a lullaby.

And Yixing? Yixing turns his attention towards the figure looming up in the distance. The temperature has dropped significantly. Yixing’s breath fogs in front of his face, his sweat feels frozen on his arms and brow. Yixing wills a great wall to rise up, block them off from the eclipsical.

It begins to rise, but the eclipsical merely walks through it, its body dissolving and reforming on the other side. It is a titan slightly shorter than Junmyeon and Baekhyun’s forms had been, but power is evident in its form. Its skin is humanoid, but tinged a deep grey blue, as if permanently frost burned. Its hair streams out behind it, waving wildly like a blizzard. Its face is like a porcelain mask, with deep blue cat eyes carved into it.

“Xiumin,” the name comes to his lips without thinking. The seraphim mention this eclipsical. He is one of the fallen angels. He was not originally a part of the eclipsical realm, and yet, he had carved out a place for himself among beings much more powerful than him.

Now, it looks as if his power is a match for them. The titan raises its hands and spires of ice ripple forwards. Yixing imagines a wall of fire coming in between he and the ice, melting it, stopping it in its tracks.

This time, his magic works in delaying the fight, but still Xiumin walks towards them, his icy eyes glinting with curiosity, with malice. 

A hand wraps around his arm and tugs. 

Yixing doesn’t have to worry about the approaching eclipsical anymore, because Jongdae has pulled him through the gate. There’s a horrible, soul sucking feeling, and Yixing wants to vomit, but as quickly as it comes, it is gone.

He opens his eyes in Jongdae’s home, sitting right in front of Baekhyun’s original summoning circle. Jongdae groans next to him and sits up as well. “I fucking hate hell,” he grumbles, rubbing his eyes. Then, his breath hitches, and he looks to Yixing.

“Do you feel different?” He asks. 

Yixing remembers and then, he begins to pay attention to himself. He wants to see if he  _ does  _ notice a change.

And, after a moment of soul-searching, he realizes he can. There’s no whisper behind his ears. There’s no ever present feeling of being watched. Contrary to what he thought Baekhyun’s magic would feel like, it’s actually very freeing. 

And yet, as someone who has believed all his life that God was watching, something about this newfound freedom is terrifying. 

He squanches the feeling in favor of glancing back at Jongdae. “Yeah, but it’s nothing big. I… can we just do the summoning, please.”

Jongdae’s eyebrows draw knit together, but he nods anyways, then he glances around. “Is this house trapped up?”

“No. I was going to lay the traps when I left. You interrupted me.”

“That’s fortuitous,” Jongdae mumbles before standing and retrieving his piece of chalk. It’s been worn down, but there’s enough of it remaining to draw another summoning circle. Instead of drawing  _ Baek _ ’s summoning circle on its own though, he redraws Hyeon’s as well, and, like a Venn diagram, he overlaps the two circles, creating the summoning circle for the Blood Moon as he does so. 

Then, he sets up the remainder of the circle, lighting the candles and fetching the elements for everything.  _ An obsidian chalice filled with the blood of an innocent, a pomegranate, a vial of myrrh, a mirror, and a desire.  _ Jongdae says aloud, though under his breath. He has everything but the blood. 

Jongdae’s never killed a human before. Baekhyun has killed for him. He has killed hell spawn. But he has never ended a human life. 

He slides his ceremonial dagger across his palm, wincing as blood seeps out and into the chalice. He sets it down inside Baek’s circle. The Blood of an Innocent. Yixing steps up close to him and drags the dagger across his palm, squeezing his blood into it as well.

“I’ve never killed,” he says softly. Never killed a witch. 

Jongdae nods, and then, only then, does he understand what Yixing is wordlessly suggesting. “Do you mean to summon him  _ with  _ me?”

“Two powerful witches? You were strong enough to summon Hyeon alone, but you need help for Baek. I can help. And… I have reason to believe it’ll be safer this way,” Yixing says, eyes fluttering shut, a breath cascading from his lips. Jongdae raises a brow, but says nothing. 

Jongdae prepares the rest of the offerings for Baek, then does the same for Hyeon, all over again. He sets a mirror at the center of the summoning circle and draws the lines of the circle over it, then he sits back.

“When I begin the incantation, there is a point at which I’ll pause. Lean into the circle and speak a desire of yours to the mirror. The more truthful it is, the better the result will be.” Yixing nods at Jongdae’s directions, then watches as the summoner begins the incantation. It’s like he slips into a trance, slowly but surely receding from the mortal realm and entering some type of limbo. 

He sways, then, he leans forward and stares into the mirror. “I desire my mother live again,” he speaks into the reflection, then he withdraws. Yixing, understanding that it is now his turn, also leans forward, staring into the swirling glass.

For a moment, his mind is blank, then, “I desire to be normal.” Simple, but true. He’d like to live a normal life, not be a hunter, nor a witch. Just living for himself. Jongdae resumes the incantation as if he hadn’t even heard Yixing. 

Yixing sits back again, waits. 

And then, Jongdae begins to wail. The hair on the back of Yixing’s neck raise. Next to him, Jongdae has begun to writhe, sobbing even though he continues to chant the spell. Tears begin to stream from his eyes, first normal, then darkening, red like blood. His lips begin to stain. He begins to drool. 

And still, he continues the spell. 

Yixing cannot interrupt, even as the eclipsicals begin to manifest in the center of the circle. Hyeon, veiled and dark, like a shadow, appears first. On the other side of the circle, a glowing figure begins to crawl out of the mirror. It appears to have multiple faces, wings, multiple arms. 

It reminds Yixing of the angels as they were described in the books of the Bible.

Baek sits up in the circle with six glowing faces and a multitude of wings behind him. He bathes the whole room in bright white light. And then, he reaches forward, outside of the circle, and takes Jongdae by the throat.

Yixing reaches out too, grabbing the eclipsical by the wrist. It turns, all twelve eyes turning to stare at him. Its mouth gapes. 

If Jongdae completes the incantation, he’ll have won his part. But the pact still must be made.

“You will merge with Hyeon and become the Blood Moon,” Yixing speaks over Jongdae, his voice hoarse. “You will help us close the veil and even after that, you will remain at our disposal. You will be loyal. You will be ours as much as we will be yours.” 

The eclipsical laughs. Both of them, Baek and Hyeon. As if Yixing is a joke.

They must be used to dealing with witches. Witches are concerned with doing everything according to the books. They never think beyond what has already been tried and tested. 

Yixing is no witch, not really. He waits until the eclipsical mockingly says,  _ “Of course,” _ and takes the ceremonial dagger, slicing it through the eclipsical’s wrist. His own cut from his earlier sacrifice of blood hasn’t closed yet, either, and their blood mingles.

Whether the eclipsical wished it or not. Baek now belongs to Yixing. 

And he knows it, too. Baek rips his severed hand away and screams deafeningly loud, trying desperately to shake Jongdae from his trance and cause the summoning to fail. Because if it  _ does  _ fail, he can just drag Jongdae into hell and slaughter him, allowing Hyeon to take care of Yixing. 

But, Jongdae is steadfast. He completes the ritual, seals their fate.

As quickly as Baek’s temper had exploded, it disappears. He turns and faces his veiled twin. Their hands intertwine, dark and light mingle, bells and chimes sound all around them. 

In another flash of light, the two have merged and the Blood Moon sits in the center of the circle before them, equally under both Jongdae’s and Yixing’s influences.

Baekhyun stares at them, his eyes startlingly black. His skin is golden, tanned like a human’s, and he wears robes of bloody red. Rose gold jewelry decorates his entire body, from his head all the way down to his toes. Haloing his head is a fantasy apparition of the moon.

This is the night of the Lunar Tetrad. They need to ready themselves to go to the warehouse and close the veil. And they’ll need help after the fiasco only a few days ago. Hunter patrols are probably at their height. They  _ need  _ other distractors.

“You did it,” Jongdae says softly, wiping the bloody tears off his face. He looks horribly tired, his hair is mussed, and blood is smeared across his face. He’s quite obviously been through the wringer both physically and mentally. 

“You did too. We need… we need to prepare for tonight.” He rises up and takes Jongdae’s hands, pulling him up too. Baekhyun rises with them, stepping out of the circle. Yixing had expected the daemon to be less subservient, but something in Baekhyun’s gaze tells him that the daemon is pleased to have been united into its full form. That it is pleased to be at the beck and call of the two witches.

Jongdae and he leave for Kyungsoo’s and arrive there some half an hour later. When Kyungsoo opens the door, it’s like deja vu. Both Jongdae and Yixing stand with blood smeared all over them, their eyes dark and wild from having been in hell. And behind them, simmering in the early morning light, Baekhyun stands imposingly.

Kyungsoo drags them all inside, avoiding Baekhyun like the plague because he  _ knows  _ something is different about the daemon. 

“What the hell happened to you? You disappeared for a whole week?!” Kyungsoo yells, dragging them both into the master bedroom and into the master bathroom. “Strip,” he says matter of factly. Both of them aren’t in any place to argue, so they quickly strip their clothes off and step inside the empty tub. Kyungsoo runs the water and immediately disappears to the closet, where he begins to grab different salts and oils.

“Where were you?”

“Hell,” Yixing says softly, “The warehouse was trapped. We fell through the veil.” Kyungsoo gasps and grabs more salts for purification. Chanyeol appears at the door, goggles settled atop his head. 

Yixing looks around. Baekhyun’s perched himself atop the toilet seat, watching them with dark, obsidian black eyes, more inhuman than he’s ever appeared to Kyungsoo and Chanyeol. Chanyeol notices and jerks his head in the daemon’s direction, “What’s with him?”

“We summoned his other half. That’s Baekhyun as one whole being.  _ Baek  _ and  _ Hyeon _ . The Blood Moon.” Jongdae says, relaxing into the filling bath, the warm water swirling up over his chest. Kyungsoo reappears at the bath side and pours some salt inside, stirring it into the water with his hand. Yixing collects Jongdae against his chest and pulls him close, the both of them sinking back into the water.

Kyungsoo tuts his tongue and drops a few essential oils into the water before turning to Chanyeol. “Go get one of your strength serums. One we can just drop into the water,” he says. Chanyeol nods and salutes, leaving the room to go fetch what Kyungsoo’s requested.

“You’re different now,” Kyungsoo comments, glancing over at Yixing. Yixing cocks his head.

“I’m bound to Baek now, and to Jongdae. I’ve been through hell and had my seraphic magic warp into witch’s magic. I’m certainly… different,” he answers. Kyungsoo stares at him for a long moment before nodding, finally accepting him as a friend and not a foe.

After Chanyeol drops a few drops of a strengthening tonic in the bath a few minutes later, both of them leave the room, leaving Jongdae, Yixing, and Baekhyun all alone.

Baekhyun leaves his place perched on the toilet seat and comes to lean against the edge of the tub, sinking down to the ground and resting his head on the ledge. He dangles one of his hands over the edge, swirling his fingers through the water, occasionally trailing his fingers against one of the witches’ naked legs.

“I’m glad you two succeeded,” he says softly. “I’d grown tired of being fractured. It’s good to be whole again,” he hums. “I feel more at ease, more relaxed.”

“You seemed like a different person in Hell. Calmer. More put together.”

“That’s how I like to be. When I’m fractured, my personality fractures too. It is harder to keep consistent. It’s unnatural.” The daemon sighs, then smiles. He really does seem more at ease now that he’s been summoned as a whole. 

“Will you fracture again once one of us dies?” 

Baekhyun turns to look at him lazily, “Hm? No… besides, you will be alive a very long time, you two.” He sighs pleasantly when Yixing drops one of his hands into his hair, scratching his head like one would a puppy. “And you are always welcome, after death, to join me in my realm. Kings of night and day,” he purrs lightly. Jongdae blinks, imagining the scene.

_ He’d like that one day.  _

Baekhyun lets his eyes slip closed, then, and for the next hour, they soak and rest. After the water runs cold, Baekhyun picks each of them up in his arms and moves them into the guest bedroom. The bed frame is still warped and ruined, but with a single touch, Baekhyun molds a new one out of the shadows. The blankets are dark and heavy, the pillows silvery like the moon. Baekhyun lays each of them under the covers, then drapes himself protectively over the foot of the bed, facing the door.

They sleep for several hours, waking up at the sound of voices. Baekhyun sits at the end of the bed, his eyes like glowing blood-colored discs. His skin is a reflection of the night sky, as if he had been cut from it like a cookie. Stars move freely across his flesh, his hair falls in deep black waves over his shoulders. He looks inhuman.

It is nearly time. “Who’s out there,” Jongdae says blearily. Baekhyun cocks his head.

“I told your friends that you intend to close the veil tonight and that you needed help. I would assume that that is help.”

Both of them slip out of bed and get dressed before walking out into the main room. Chanyeol chats with three very familiar faces. “Yifan? Luhan? Tao?” Yixing exclaims, mouth parting in shock. The three hunters look up and any concern on their faces melts away in favor of pure joy at seeing Yixing safe and sound. “How did you guys?”

“Chanyeol came and found us with that daemon’s help,” they explain, together. Yixing doesn’t really want to hear the whole story, he’s that happy to see them all again. While he hugs and greets them, thanks them for coming to help, Jongdae turns to see who else has joined them. 

He sees Minseok and behind him someone that looks like his twin. Baekhyun appears at Jongdae’s arm. “Xiumin, the last eclipsical,” he identifies. Jongdae remembers feeling the daemon’s presence back in hell, but he had not seen him, had been too busy opening the gate.

Beyond him, there are a few more witches Jongdae’s familiar with. Irene—a powerful medium and spirit summoner, Yerim and Seungwan—beast-tamers and elemental witches, and Sooyoung and Seulgi, two daemons from the courts of hell. They wave at him when he looks over at them, and he waves back. Then his attention is pulled towards the corner of the room.

“Sehun-ah and Kai,” Baekhyun introduces, leading Jongdae over to the two eclipsicals. Both of them look up, gazes thick with an emotion Jongdae can’t quite place. The one named Kai curls more closely around Sehun, while Sehun reaches forward and pulls Baekhyun close enough to kiss.

“You taste like power, Hyun-ah” Sehun says sweetly, withdrawing. Baekhyun rolls his eyes. Jongdae’s gaze roves over the two eclipsicals for only another second before moving on, settling onto the young human sat between them. The young hunter from days ago, back when that punk had shoved him off the sidewalk.

The hunter licks his lips nervously, “My name’s Jongin,” he says, softly, shyly, voice barely above a whisper. Jongdae nods, then pats his head kindly. 

“Thank you for coming to help. You have very powerful friends,” he says softly. Jongin nods.

Jongdae turns away from them and faces the room. 

“Thank you all for coming to help,” he says. He doesn’t raise his voice, but he doesn’t need to, not when the room instantly quiets. “I’m sure all of us will only benefit from the closing of the veil.” He can hear Sehun and Kai grumbling in the corner, but they don’t count. “Yixing and I know how to get to it, but we made a mistake the last time we came across it. We won’t make the same mistake, but we do have some of the consequences to deal with.”

Yixing clears his throat, “Hunter patrols in the warehouse district are going to be very dense. They’re going to have all of their best out there and this time we can’t sacrifice Baekhyun to cause a distraction.” Everyone’s gaze subconsciously flicks to where the daemon stands next to Jongdae, practically radiating with power. “We need your help causing the distraction. Since it is late, there are also going to be hell spawn running amok. So… things will be chaotic.”

“We need you to trust that we’ll get the veil closed and then help everyone escape the hunters that are going to remain after the veil is closed,” Jongdae says. He brushes his hair out of his eyes and sighs. “Please be careful. Thank you for coming, knowing that it is going to be dangerous.” He turns to stare at the five hunters in the room—Yixing, Luhan, Yifan, Tao, and Jongin—and gives each of them a nod of thanks as well. They’ll be labelled traitors to their cause. If they have any family, they may very well never see them again after this. “We can’t waste anymore time, is everyone ready to go?”

The room murmurs their ascent, and, just like that, they are on the move. Jongdae and Yixing lead the way, Baekhyun gliding through the shadows ahead of them. Minseok and his eclipsical (who Jongdae has learned is only contracted for this sole fight) bring up the rear. 

It doesn’t take long to reach the warehouse district, but once they do, they have no time to rest. Immediately, alarms begin to ring, obviously picking up on the large magical presence their small group has. Jongdae nods to Baekhyun and the daemon snarls, raising clawed hands up to the sky.

The sky seems to light on fire. The Blood Moon’s light shines as brightly as the sun. It casts a bright red glow over everything. Baekhyun writhes in the sky for a mere second before he splits in two. Baek, the light, appears in his full form, with his many faces and wings. He glows like a beacon in the night air. 

Hyeon, the dark, appears in his veiled form, so at peace with the shadows that Jongdae sees him for only a moment before he blends into the night, invisible to the naked eye. Around them, the witches disperse, all picking different streets to fight on.

Hyeon grips both Jongdae and Yixing in his grip, coming into view as he casts his veil over the both of them, effectively making them invisible to the naked eye as well. 

And then, he guides them through the dark red streets. 

They only get so far before someone runs into them, breaking the illusion. Hyeon snarls, his jaw unhinging inhumanly. Yixing beats him though, responding with a heavy, deadly spell that knocks the hunter onto his back. 

A screech and Hyeon leans forward and tears the hunter’s corpse open, ripping free all of the man’s organs, bringing them up to his mouth with bloodied hands. Yixing gasps and Jongdae looks away. 

They begin to run again. On the roofs above them, they can hear the familiar sound of Baek’s wings beating, of the chimes singing. Behind them, Hyeon has completed his feast and rejoins them again, the sound of dogs and bells making his presence unmistakable.

They run into another group of hunters, this one much larger than any Jongdae’s dealt with before. There are probably seven of them all together. Their attention is mostly on Baek until they notice the daemon and witches below him. Jongdae watches one of them shoot off a crossbow at Baek, but as expected, the daemon seems only annoyed by the hit. 

Hyeon strides forward and wrestles the largest in the group into his grip. A gaping hole opens in the ground and both Hyeon and the hunter fall through it. Jongdae does his best to ignore what death awaits the poor hunter and steps forward, blasting forward with his offensive magic. The hunters wear very strong charms, all of which provide something of a shield for them.

But Jongdae and Yixing have fully come into their own with their powers. If the hunters do not strike forwards more offensively, Jongdae and Yixing  _ will  _ kill them. They seem to understand, because in the very next moment, one of them is darting forward and slicing out with a sword. Jongdae grabs his dagger from his belt and hurriedly blocks the blow, spinning out of the way of another.

Yixing shouts in alarm, dragging Jongdae’s gaze over to him in time to see a knife barreling toward his face. Hyeon catches the hunter’s arm and crushes the bone, so forceful that the bone tears through the skin and up and out of the arm.

The hunter screams. Jongdae kills him with a quick spell just to save him from suffering. He then returns his full attention back to the sword wielding hunter, eventually knocking him out with a well timed concussive spell. When he looks up, everything is quiet apart from Yixing’s harsh breathing. Baek appears to have taken care of the rest of the group, his white wings and body stained with gore.

“Come on,” they take off running again. In the distance they hear the familiar whistle of Sehun’s wind rocketing through the streets, but they pay it no mind, instead barrelling towards the warehouse they  _ know  _ houses the chasm into hell.

Once they reach it, Yixing makes to break the window again, but he needn’t worry. The split forms of Baekhyun join back together, returning him to his starry-skinned look. He  _ blasts  _ the doors off their hinges, ripping up the charms that had been laid as traps just within the entrance. 

Jongdae and Yixing follow him inside and then lead the way down into the basement, careful this time of the dangers lying in the staircase. They make it all the way down in one piece and there, in the hazy dark, is the soft glow of the rip in the veil.

Reality seems blurred around it, the room swimming like it is part of a dream. 

“How do you close it?” Yixing says. The glowing chasm seems to hear him and it pulses brighter. From within it, there is a noise akin to a roar. From the depths hell spawn begin to crawl, called into this world by Baekhyun’s vicinity to the chasm.

Jongdae slices open his hands and walks forward, dragging his hands through the air until he feels something different. And though it takes time, and he grows worried for a moment that it won’t work, he does finally grab onto the edge of reality. 

The veil is not a figurative representation, but a literal one, and Jongdae begins to  _ physically  _ drag it closed. 

Baekhyun crushes the head of the first imp that dares to leap towards Jongdae, and Yixing blasts the next back. 

Jongdae begins the spell, but keeps his eyes open and searching, staring forwards into the pit of hell. 

Baekhyun must know what his real purpose for doing this was. He must know that Jongdae is selfish above all else.

Jongdae completes the first verse of the chant, then moves onto the next, smiling when he sees the river of souls rise up, bubble over the chasm. His eyes rove over the waters, searching, searching, searching.

_ There.  _ His mother, smiling in the torrent, reaching out for him. He nearly lets go of the veil in order to reach out to her, but a hand closes over his, forces him to keep his grip. Yixing yells into his ear.

Jongdae can’t hear him, not when he is so captivated by his mother, so taken away by the spell.

He can’t hear anything other than her voice, asking, begging him to come join her, that she misses him. He takes a step forward, nearing dangerously close to the edge of the chasm. 

Baekhyun appears at his other side, leaning dangerously close, breathing out in a whisper, “The dead are not given up easily, Jongdae. If you join her in the realm of the dead, you will never know peace. If you pull her up into the realm of the living, she will never know peace.”

Jongdae’s chant falters.

“You are not the judge and jury, Jongdae. Complete what I’ve pacted to you to do,” he says coaxingly. 

Jongdae sobs and completes the spell.

Just like that, the chasm seals over and the magic in the room seems to get sucked away with it. Baekhyun steps away from him and looks up at the ceiling. They can still hear the sounds of a fight. 

“Tell them it’s done, Baekhyun. Make us invisible.”

The daemon cloaks them carefully and sends them out. Then he transforms, taking on the image Baek typically wears. He takes flight, rising up in the air, a beacon of light for all to see. The Blood Moon has begun to pass, its silvery light finally returning as the night wanes into twilight.

Jongdae and Yixing run home right as the clock strikes twelve. 

For once, Jongdae feels prepared. No longer will hellspawn lurk on the streets come nightfall. No longer does he have to worry about his world.

Perhaps for the first time in twenty years, his home will be as it once was. Jongdae turns to look at Yixing, genuinely smiling, and presses his lips against the hunter’s, sighing once the kiss is returned.

A few hours later, when the sun peeks over the horizon, Jongdae feels like it’s the dawn of a new life.


	5. Resurrection

He sweats while staring at the audience in front of him, suddenly regretting ever walking up to the podium. The Asiatic Federation of Hunters is not a friendly audience. Representatives from the many guilds look up at him, already unconvinced.

He feels like such a stranger to them that it’s hard for him to believe that he used to work with these people regularly. 

And yet, all he can think about was how hard it was for Yifan, Luhan, and Tao to finally have this meeting approved. There were conditions of course, the first being that he did not invoke any magic. The next conditions have no particular order or importance, so long as all were followed. He relays them all in his mind. 

He will present to the assembly for half an hour at maximum, and will then answer any questions asked. He is to be unarmed and unguarded. He is only to be accompanied by one other person at maximum, and that person—Jongdae—is to be held to all the same regulations.

A hand rests on his shoulder. He looks to his right, and Jongdae lip quirks, soothing Yixing’s nerves.

“My name is Zhang Yixing. I was a member of the Changsha Guild. My circumstances required that I leave with little notice,” he states. A ripple goes through the assembly. They act like he had a choice to choose magic or not. 

He shakes his head, emboldened, “I’m speaking to you today to ask for legislation to be passed to ally the Federation to the Universal Coven.” He remembers fondly Jongdae’s reaction to covens just a couple of years ago—that they were out of date, unused. “Such an alliance would yield prosperity for us both. The Coven needs enforcers for the universal laws it has set in place. The Federation wishes to keep humanity safe from the dark side of magic. Training with magical folk will prepare hunters for the type of beastly creatures they may encounter while enforcing their law. 

Meanwhile, exposing magical folk to humans that are capable of protecting themselves in the event of accidents will help to teach magical folk the ways of our world. It will help them assimilate.

We have fought for centuries,” not him specifically, but witches and hunters, most certainly, “but, what have we gained? There will always be magic in the world, regardless of your slaughter. Our world is naturally a world of magic. It is one that will constantly breathe the arcane into each new era.” He glances to Yifan, Luhan, and Tao, all of them sat in the front row of the chamber.

“We are already more alike than we are different. Allow us to help you. We have magical cures for almost every disease. We have wards to protect our homes our children. We have charms that soothe us or make our lives easier in some other little way. Truly, what is there to lose from this arrangement?” 

Quiet. They are not swayed. They likely won’t be swayed for another few weeks. But, Yixing can recognize friends of his from back before he was corrupted with Baekhyun’s magic. He can see them nodding, remembering. He’s not all that different than he was two years ago. 

“I brought with me the King of the Sabbat. We are bound in blood.” 

He and Jongdae have planned this since the meeting was approved. It will either kill their chance, or it will ensure it.

Jongdae steps up to the podium, “We would like to offer the Federation a gift, for so kindly welcoming us this evening.” It is the night of a lunar eclipse.

He turns to Yixing and they nod.

From the floor of the chamber, below the podium and the seating, Hell begins to bubble up. The floorboards groan and crack and peel themselves away. 

A howl rings out into the room. Jongdae and Yixing watch as the hunters freeze, wholly shocked. There’s screaming, not from the chamber itself, but from the gate that has opened. Hands begin to grip at the edges, spirits trying to lift themselves free.

And from the masses, the Blood Moon rises up. His figure is made of glass and he is veiled in ashy grey. Silver bells hang from his neck, from the crown of bones on his head. He picks up the veil and draws it back, allowing his face to be seen. It is sharp and angular, resultant of the fractals of glass that make up his entire expression.

“Please, don’t be afraid,” Yixing speaks out, loudly. His words seem to break the trance the room is in. Everyone turns to look at him, and yet, they are all still reaching for weapons. “The Blood Moon is responsible for illusion, for light and dark, for life and death, for creation and destruction, for heaven and hell. He will grant a desire.”

Yixing looks to the crowd. No one seems interested. Except… “You,” he points. The hunter looks up. She’s young, a little bit younger than Yixing if he had to guess. Maybe Jongdae’s age. “You looked interested,” he invites.

The hunters turn to look at her. They seem to recognize her for something. Something must have happened to her within the last two years, which is why Yixing doesn’t know anything about her.

“My baby died of the flu. When you said life and death, I thought for a moment…” she trails off. Her face is sad and full of longing even as she dismisses herself.

Yixing looks to Jongdae who tips his head ever so slightly. Both of them look on to Baekhyun, who stands rigidly tall, strikingly regal. “Baekhyun,” they both say, in unison. “Is this something you can grant?”

Baekhyun turns. His eyes seemingly blank, devoid of color, of expression. Then, he nods slowly. He turns, beckons to the woman. She looks to her superiors for permission. After a beat, they all finally nod. 

And so, she walks forward, her footsteps ringing out loud and clear above the soft chiming of the bells and the slight whisper of lullabies. Baekhyun holds out his hands to her, and she takes them. For a moment, they stand there, the mighty god next to the grieving mother.

Then, a hound leaps out of the gate beneath Baekhyun’s feet. In its jaws, there is a bundle. Baekhyun undoes the cloth and cradles the child. It is dressed in white, funerary garments. 

He presses his thumb to the child’s chest and waits as it begins to cough, to sneeze, to wake up. Color flushes the baby’s skin, giving it life, giving it vitality.

Baekhyun passes the child to the mother, watching her cry. The Federation is speechless.

“The eclipsicals do not make it a habit to grant favors,” Baekhyun says, his voice ringing out in a dozen different tones, “Nor do I often put my hands on the fate of the living and the dead. You are lucky the child was young, else hell would scar and erode their heart.” 

He turns then, blowing a kiss to the two witches at the podium, and falls backwards into Hell, the gateway closing behind him.

In the resulting silence, Yixing is worried.

Then, Jongdae smiles, bows. “We apologize for so blatantly disregarding the statutes of this meeting, however, we wanted to show you what the capabilities of magic are. We may not raise the dead—in fact, we outlaw the practice—but we have the magic to heal and to sustain. You need only to learn to live with us without killing us.”

They had both promised to stay for questions, but Yixing is sure it’s only a matter of time before the hunters begin to think again. And when they process what’s happened, he’s not sure they’ll be happy. 

With a bow, a window shatters, forced to break by their magic, and both witches shift into birds.

***

It takes roughly twenty-four hours for them to receive word that the Federation will never accept another representative speaker from the Coven. 

***

It takes another two years before the Federation apologizes for its previous correspondence and requests to move forward with the alliance, and in the months that follow, both it and the Coven work to create a set of statutes that will benefit both the magical folk and the non-magical.


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little baby chapter to tie up things a little bit more!

“Zitao has asked, without fail, each time I’ve seen him, if the blood bond is like a marriage,” Yixing comments mildly. Jongdae looks up from the summoning circle he’s been drawing for the past hour. 

“I suppose it’s like that, yes,” Jongdae says, “though I’m not sure we’ve ever treated it like that? We weren’t even friendly with one another when we were first bonded.” 

“I’d say we were friendly,” Yixing protests, “but you’re right. We definitely weren’t couple status.”

Jongdae looks back down at his circle, resuming his chalk drawing, “What brings this on?” he asks as he makes another sweeping arc of chalk. 

“Well, Baekhyun keeps asking me if something’s wrong, and that if I’m going through anything, I can always talk it out with him,” Yixing muses. Jongdae looks up, mouth parting. 

He points his finger at Yixing half because of shock, half because of confusion, “He’s been asking me the same stuff!?”

Yixing barks out a laugh and sets down his book across his lap. He cocks his head to the side, “I saw Zitao yesterday and it reminded me of Baekhyun’s hounding. Do… do daemons see blood bonds as a marriage?”

Silence.

Then, Jongdae swears. “Oh my god, he’s been thinking we’re a couple?” He spews in one breath. Yixing snorts and leans back to let Jongdae work through the revelation. “If he thinks we’re a couple does he think he’s also a part of the couple? Are we a throuple? Oh god, I’m so glad my mother’s not around anymore, I can’t imagine telling her I got married and didn’t invite her to the wedding, she would lose it!” 

“So we’re married?” Yixing asks. 

Jongdae stops, turns, blinking. Then, his lip quirks, “I suppose so. I mean… if you… want?” He huffs, “Like, we already live together and work together and everything.”

“I don’t mind,” Yixing says kindly, “I think most people assume we’re together anyways. And, it’s basically already official.” 

Jongdae nods, then he begins to laugh. Yixing joins him.

Before long, they hear the sound of dogs, then of bells and chimes, all of which herald Baekhyun’s arrival. The circle Jongdae had been working on begins to warp, shaping a much more familiar design. Baekhyun begins to mold himself into being.

Eventually, he is present in their world again, sat in the middle of the circle.

“Were you trying to cheat on me?” He comments, wiping the chalk away with one tanned hand. He’s wrapped in his red robes, as are characteristic of his more human appearance. 

“Not at all, in fact, I think I’ve just figured everything out,” Jongdae answers turning to the daemon. “Do you think Yixing and I are married?”

“Are you not?” Baekhyun asks, confusion finally evident in his tone. 

“No we are,” Jongdae amends, “But did you think we were?”

“I’ve assumed so. You are bond mates,” he says. Yixing shakes his head, dumbfounded. Baekhyun’s eyes narrowed, but he doesn’t seem to catch on to what the big joke is. So, he dismisses it and crawls forward, into Jongdae’s lap. He’s always been more affectionate with Jongdae.

Jongdae ruffles his hair, then gasps when Baekhyun’s mouth settles at the base of his throat, kissing softly. Yixing sucks in a breath. Baekhyun hears and looks up, lips curling. “You are supposed to consummate a marriage,” he muses quietly, nibbling at Jongdae’s earlobe, “and I know for a fact that you haven’t… yet.” 

Yixing huffs out a strained laugh. Jongdae pants.

“Perhaps, it’s time?” Baekhyun proposes. Yixing groans. 

Perhaps it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are much appreciated—let me know that you like what I do!
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/sophluorescent)


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